Archive: August 2016

Public activist, head of the Frankivsk NGO "Vision Zero" Viktor Zagreba on the results of a study conducted in Ivano-Frankivsk: how safe is the behavior of road users and the city's infrastructure, and what is the zero mortality strategy? Hosts Olga Vesnyanka and Eduard Lozovy. Eduard Lozovy: The study says that two-thirds of drivers in Ivano-Frankivsk exceed the speed limit in the city. 85 % do not use seat belts. Tell us why you studied this and what is the benefit of it ? Viktor Zagreba: Traffic safety depends on factors that lie in three areas: safe roads, safe vehicles, safe road users. In Ukraine, human behavior has never been studied, and it predicts how likely a road accident is. My fellow activists and I decided to do what is standard for the EU and the USA — try to measure and establish the prevailing behavior on the roads and streets. We took Ivano-Frankivsk and tried to conduct this research there. The results are quite interesting: for some, they are impressive, for us, not so much, we expected something like this. Viktor Zagreba: We checked the infrastructure partially, because we set aside two days to do it. This is all volunteer work. More attention was paid to the behavior of people: drivers, cyclists. We found that this behavior is dangerous. 85 % of people driving cars do not fasten their seat belts, about 60 % of cyclists at night and in the evening ignore the rule that they must have a flashlight. We inspected 18 traffic lights in the city center for safety for pedestrians. And about a third need either urgent repair or replacement, because the modes and switching phases are violated. Only one traffic light out of 18 is adapted for people with poor eyesight. Eduard Lozovy: It was recently announced that Ukraine is switching to automatic recording of traffic violations. Would this have an effect for Frankivsk ? Viktor Zagreba: Of course it would. We obtained the radar used by the traffic police , and measured the speed. Some people are not ashamed to drive around the city at speeds of up to 128 km/h both during the day and at night. If there were an automatic control camera, people would drive calmer. But the second question is that many people think that these cameras are about to start working. But as far as we have researched, they will not be there for a year or a half. The process of preparing the system for launch is going very slowly. And it is not clear to us at all whether it is going well. The working group of the National Police, which is supposed to develop something, has not shown any results or concepts in seven months, so we are skeptical about this. Eduard Lozovy: I saw that you want to start developing a zero mortality strategy and propose it to the city hall. What is it about ? Viktor Zagreba: The name of our organization means “zero vision”. This is a modern approach when cities or regions set a goal to reduce road mortality to zero. We strive for this for Frankivsk and further for Kyiv and other cities. The point is to believe that any death is unacceptable. Last year, there were 13 fatalities in Frankivsk, and this year there have been six. We want to work with the city hall and police to develop a comprehensive strategy that will affect both behavior and road safety and infrastructure, so that in three to five years, no one in Frankivsk will die on the roads and streets.