The road safety situation in Ukraine is deteriorating sharply, both in large cities and outside them. The danger index in Ukraine increased by 27% in the first 5 months, and in regional centers by 54%. Official data failed to reveal signs of a systematic positive impact of the Patrol Police on road safety in cities or on the roads it serves. This is evidenced by an analysis of official statistics of the National Police of Ukraine for the first 5 months of 2016, carried out by the non-governmental organization
"Vision Zero" .
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
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%). 
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