"The recent traffic accidents are high-profile, but completely expected. The worsening of the road safety situation has been going on for a long time - at least since the beginning of the year," says Viktor Zagreba's blog on the news website Obozrevatel.com.
The number of road accidents with victims is increasing, both in individual cities and in Ukraine as a whole. In my opinion, it will only get worse, because statistics for the last two or three years indicate that the most dangerous accident period is summer, especially July, August, and September. The new patrol police are generally working well, but they are not having any noticeable impact on traffic safety. The deterioration is visible where they have been operating since last year, and also in those cities where they have just started. On the highways in the Lviv region, where the new police are operating, the deterioration of the safety situation is visible to the same extent as on those highways where they are not operating. Why do the patrol police have no impact? Probably because they do not have sufficient resources and capabilities to influence the two key risk factors that, according to statistics, lead to the majority of road accidents. The first factor is excessive speed of vehicles, the second is alcohol. The law gives patrol police very little opportunity to influence these factors. Firstly, it does not measure speed. Many drivers know this, especially undisciplined drivers who are prone to aggressive driving, and they ignore traffic rules. The patrol police do not have measuring devices, they do not stand with radars, but patrol in motion. Secondly, in Ukraine, an automatic speed recording system, stationary cameras, has not yet been created, and it is unknown when it will be launched.
All this will not be before the fall. Therefore, this summer season, in terms of accident rates, will probably be maximum. My pessimistic forecast is that this summer Ukraine will live without speed control at all. This is bad news for disciplined drivers and pedestrians who are worried about their lives. The second thing that is very bad is that the patrol police have very little influence on drunk drivers. That is, patrol officers, according to the law "On the National Police", have the right to stop a car only if the driver has committed some violation of traffic rules. If the car is driving in compliance with traffic rules and does not commit violations, then the patrol officer does not have the right to stop it, even if he suspects that the driver may be drunk. Drivers who regularly get behind the wheel after drinking simply know about it, so they drink, so to speak, to the extent that they are able to calmly, without violations, get home, where the patrol police operate. Today, our patrol officers are police officers with limited capabilities. Because all European Union countries provide the police with the opportunity to stop cars at random to check for alcohol. The time when the most intoxicated drivers get behind the wheel: this is Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and evening and night time. In addition, the punishment for drunk driving in our country is not very severe, compared to the European Union. The fine for the first such violation is 3400 UAH. It is in no way comparable to the threat that these drivers pose.
What can be done in this situation? On an individual level, we can only wish readers to be even more careful and attentive - both in cars and on foot. And to remember to always fasten our seat belts, including in the back seat. Because the laws of physics work the same in the front seat and in the back. The second is to remember that the most dangerous light is green. And when you approach a traffic light with a green light on, this means that you should look very carefully to the right and left, forward and backward, because you never know who may be driving, whether he sees the traffic light and is going to stop. Therefore, there should be even more attention than at red. The third is to be attentive in the evening and on weekends. If there is an opportunity not to drive, then it is better not to drive in the evening and at night, and on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It is better to go on Monday evening, for example.
What to do at the state level? Take the measures I mentioned as soon as possible: automatic recording cameras, speed control on the roads, and stricter control and punishment for drunk driving. The Verkhovna Rada has a bill No. 4373 on this topic, adopted in the first. It needs to pass the second reading and be signed by the President as soon as possible, because this is a matter of hundreds of lives, if not thousands. Of course, at the state level, we need to take this problem more seriously. Activists and journalists have been talking about this for about 10 years. Because the level of road safety in our country fluctuates like the weather, or like the hryvnia exchange rate - completely unpredictable and without any control from the state. Ukraine must finally create a road safety agency, which will be a small coordinating analytical state agency that will analyze the causes of safety problems and develop strategies for eliminating them.
We do not have such an agency yet, while a draft law on it is also in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The material was originally published on the Obozrevatel website on June 16, 2016, direct link: http://obozrevatel.com/blogs/97514-dtp-v-ukraini-nihto-ne-kontrolyue-netverezih-vodiiv.htm
As a key indicator of traffic safety, our analytical study used the number of road traffic accidents with victims registered by the police, i.e., such events that led to injury or death of people. A total of 9,807 such events were recorded in the reporting period. Indicators such as the total number of registered road accidents, the number of people killed and injured in them are not used in this report for various reasons, including doubts about their veracity. According to official data from the National Police, the indicator of road accidents with victims in all regions of Ukraine (excluding the city of Kyiv), for which data is available, increased by 26.23% in the first 5 months of 2016 compared to the same period last year. The anti-leaders in terms of changes in the state of road safety in 2016 among the regions are Vinnytsia (101%), Mykolaiv (77%), Ternopil (77%), Rivne (76%) and Volyn (71%). The number of road accidents with victims did not increase only in one region - Kyiv (-9.02%). National Police data claim that the deterioration of the situation in regional centers is more dramatic than in the country as a whole. However, it is worth noting that the majority of road accidents with victims still occur outside regional centers: during the reporting period, 2,838 such accidents occurred in regional centers, and 6,059 outside them. In regional centers, the average rate of road accidents with victims for the first 5 months of 2016 increased by 54.7% compared to the same period last year. The anti-leaders in the change in the state of traffic safety among regional centers were four cities, in which the situation deteriorated more than twice: Vinnytsia (indicator growth by 150%), Rivne (149%), Zaporizhia (148%) and Ternopil (136%). The situation did not worsen only in three regional cities - Sumy, Odesa and Lviv. We tried to assess whether the new Patrol Police had any positive impact on traffic safety in regional centers, and did not come to a clear conclusion. Among the eight cities served by the new police throughout 2016, the traffic safety level decreased in six. These are Mykolaiv (96.6%), Lutsk (81%), Uzhhorod (80%), Khmelnytskyi (78.7%), Kyiv (37.9%) and Kharkiv (24.4%). The traffic safety level did not decrease, if we believe the official figures, in two of these cities: Odesa (-29%) and Lviv (-3.8%). 
We also tried to assess whether there is an improvement in traffic safety on highways outside cities that are already patrolled by the police. To do this, we took statistics on road accidents on the highways of Lviv region, as well as on the M-06 highway, which have been fully or largely serviced by the Patrol Police since January 2016, and saw that there was a deterioration in traffic safety: the number of road accidents with victims on them increased by 21%, from 190 cases to 230. This is less than the average for Ukraine (27%), but such a situation can hardly be called an achievement. 
. The main risk factors leading to the largest share of injuries and deaths are still alcohol and excessive speed: the number of victims and deaths due to drunk drivers, according to official data alone, increased by 27%, and due to dangerous speed - by 7%. Regarding the types of road accidents, a deterioration of the situation was recorded for all types, especially: the category "collision" showed an increase of 48%, "hitting a cyclist" - 23%, "hitting a stationary vehicle" - 23%, "hitting a pedestrian" - 17%. 
If you want to check our calculations, see all the tables, and play with your own infographics, we invite you to download our report in XLS format at the link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3l0B6k5XsVmTmYzcmJwRUg1X0k/view?usp=sharing You can download all public statistics of the National Police regarding road accidents in Ukraine (also in XLS format) on this page: http://www.sai.gov.ua/ua//ua/static/21 . 
Do you think our conclusions are wrong or not entirely justified? We will gladly take part in the discussion and correct any errors, if any. Sincerely, Viktor Zagreba, Chairman of the Board of the NGO "Vision Zero", tel. 067 442 14 94, viktor@zagreba.com, https://www.facebook.com/zagreba/ 23.06.2016
