Harsh statistics as usual – more than 100 people have died in road accidents this year. Meanwhile, the situation with drink-drivers is a bit more hopeful, with almost 500 fewer drunk drivers detected this year than last year, Latvian Radio reported on 27 November.
More than 14,000 accidents have occurred on the roads this year – 65 more than in the first 10 months of last year. The number of people slightly injured in crashes has fallen this year, while the number of people seriously injured and killed has risen. So far, 108 people have died on the roads.
The highest number of fatalities are drivers of vehicles – 34; 26 of them are car drivers. There were also 29 pedestrians, nine more than last year.
There are also relatively positive figures, said State Police spokesman Juris Jančevskis. The number of road accidents caused by drink-driving has been falling in recent years. This year there were 522 cases, compared with 615 in the same period last year.
The total number of drivers arrested under the influence of alcohol has also fallen, Jančevskis said:
“This year the total number of detained drivers is 2,914. In 1,067 of these cases the drivers were under the influence of up to 1.5 per mille and had a driving licence. This is the biggest reduction this year compared to last year. For drink-driving without a licence, the figure is still high, but there is a reduction of around 100 cases.”
To reduce the number of accidents on the roads, the State Police plans to develop technical means, such as updating the camera software and introducing 17 new average speed control stages.
This year, the Road Traffic Safety Directorate (CSDD) has launched a pilot project to identify the causes of serious road accidents. It investigated 57 road accidents in which people died and three in which someone was seriously injured, as well as trying to identify more problematic road sections, road safety expert Oskars Irbītis said:
“If we look at this year, there is actually only one fatal accident on the Liepāja highway, and it is the same near Riga, but a number of serious accidents, including those with several fatalities in one accident, have occurred on the Ventspils highway this year. So this is a very clear demonstration that we cannot draw conclusions from looking at, for example, the situation only on a yearly basis.”
The expert said that in world practice, such studies are carried out over a 5-year period and then the necessary database can be collected to draw conclusions.
But provisionally, the most frequent causes of accidents are intoxication, speeding, and health conditions.
The Minister of Transport, Atis Švinka (Progressives), is considering introducing harsher penalties in view of the gloomy situation. The idea that infringement points could start to be applied by technical means is also being discussed in the Transport Ministry.
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