site.btaParliament Establishes Ad Hoc Committee to Deal with Road Safety Issues

Parliament has set up an ad hoc committee on road safety issues. The decision to set up the committee was unanimously adopted with 178 votes in favour. According to the decision, the ad hoc committee shall consist of 16 MPs, two from each parliamentary group.

For a period of three months, the ad hoc committee shall establish all facts and circumstances regarding road safety problems in cooperation with the Executive, the Judiciary and road safety experts. The ad hoc committee shall draft specific legislative measures to significantly reduce the negative impact of traffic accidents.

Andrey Runchev (GERB-UDF) was elected chairman of the committee.

Manoil Manev, GERB-UDF MP, said that an average of 400 people die in traffic accidents in the country every year. The perpetrators of these offences have mostly used alcohol and drugs. "Why do we need to make such an ad hoc committee - because attempts to make legislative changes in various areas of infrastructure, punitive measures in the Road Traffic Act and changes in the Criminal Code proved that the spraying of all kinds of legislative initiatives coming from civil society organizations, lawyers and professionals, does not yield good results," explained Manev, adding that this calls for complex solutions.

In the course of the debates Socialist MP Kiril Dobrev stated the support of his BSP-United Left for the committee's establishment. "It is no secret that we make changes in the law "ad hoc" for each specific case and with time it turns out that most of them had been inadequate," he said.