The news that the former Chief Secretary of the Ministry of Interior, Miroslav Rashkov, has five speeding tickets is indicative not just of a personal oversight, but of a deep systemic problem. It is a symptom of a policy that in recent years has turned road control into an industry for collecting fines, instead of an effective tool for reducing victims of road accidents.
This is stated in a statement by the Institute for Road Safety (IPB) on the topic of the effectiveness of road control in our country. According to the Institute, the over-focus on criminal repression and mass sanctioning for speeding do not lead to a sustainable reduction in deaths and injuries on the roads.
"Nevertheless, over 2 million fines have been imposed in the last year. Thus, in practice, almost every active driver is turned into a “system violator“, without leading to a qualitative change in behavior and safety," say the experts from the Institute.
The fact that even the highest professional leader in the system is among those sanctioned calls into question the effectiveness of the model. When the rules are not perceived as fair and aimed at real prevention, but as a mechanism for filling budget deficits, public trust erodes, the IPB notes.
In a number of European countries, speed cameras are perceived as “lifesavers“, because they are part of an overall policy based on prevention, engineering solutions and the concept “Vision Zero“ – zero tolerance for road victims. In our country, however, they are increasingly perceived as “piggy banks“.
We expect the new leadership of the Ministry of Interior to change the focus – from the quantity of fines to the quality of measures; from repression to real prevention; from budgetary logic to public responsibility. Only in this way can sustainable and measurable change in road safety be achieved, the opinion says.