Improving attitudes and behaviour on the roads and protecting children’s lives continue to be priorities for the Russian general department of road traffic safety

25 May 2014

25 May was the 82nd anniversary of the creation of the Road Safety Promotion Department of Russia’s Traffic Police. Today, when the number of vehicles on the roads is increasing significantly, road traffic accident prevention and road users’ attitudes and behaviour are key concerns for the government and society. Accordingly, promoting compliance with road traffic regulations and making road traffic offences socially unacceptable is one of the main aspects of the work of the General Department of Road Traffic Safety of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.

While society is hoping to see new initiatives and solutions capable of reducing tensions on the roads, the main challenge here continues to be the attitudes and behaviour of road users. In just the last few years, there have been a number of large-scale public awareness campaigns: “Buckle Up!”, “Passenger Right”, “Car Seats for Children”, “No Rush”, and “Brake in Advance!” These campaigns have addressed the most problematic aspects of road safety.

This work is actively supported by civil society institutions. NGOs, the scientific and expert community, young people and students, the media, and indeed everyone who cares about the issue, have been actively discussing the problem of road safety. Take, for example, the “Brake in Advance!” campaign, which was held in Russia in April and aimed to improve pedestrian safety on pedestrian crossings. It succeeded in engaging government officials, experts, professional drivers, public figures from the worlds of arts and culture, Olympic champions, and racing car drivers from virtually all of Russia’s regions.

Young people and the student community are increasingly voicing their willingness to support road safety efforts. The first youth forum “Ensuring Road Safety: Challenges and Solutions”, held in Moscow recently, exemplifies this. It was the first time that students from universities of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs had gathered together in such large numbers to discuss the challenges of improving road safety. Participants presented their own ideas and proposals and spoke about the need to engage young people in promoting a law-abiding model of behaviour on the roads.

Helping teachers to educate children about how to behave on the roads is another important aspect of the traffic inspectors’ work. With the support of the General Department of Road Traffic Safety, for more than 40 years Russia has had brigades of young traffic inspectors. The young inspectors learn road safety skills and encourage their peers to observe road traffic regulations. Every year the General Department of Road Traffic Safety holds a number of large-scale road safety events for the young traffic inspectors, at both a regional and national level. These include the “Safe Wheel” national competition and special trips to children’s camps.

Various socially important events and measures aimed at improving children’s road safety are now well established. Miniature towns and other road safety training areas are being opened throughout the country.

Ahead of the school summer holidays, traffic inspectors across Russia will once again be drawing the attention of the general public to the issue of children’s road safety. They will be holding extra lessons for schoolchildren, and attending teacher-parent meetings and meetings of teachers’ councils to talk about the prevention of child deaths and injuries. Inspectors will also be working with children and teenagers who ride bicycles and scooters. During the summer, inspectors will be visiting children’s camps to remind schoolchildren about road safety rules. 

Share




Comments

So that to post a comment you need to login the web site

News

We recommend to look



Login Register
Login Register