The Government of Ukraine allocates enormous sums for construction and repair of roads, finances work on improving the safety of roads, including the program "500-500-1000", and urges not just to absorb financial resources but to strengthen traffic safety. This was announced by Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman during a first meeting of the Coordinating Council for traffic safety established in February of this year.

The Head of Government cited statistics, according to which, more than 3.5 thousand people died in road accidents and almost 35 thousand were injured. At the same time, the increase of the quality of the roadbed leads to deterioration of the discipline of drivers and carriers - first of all, regarding the speed limit and transportation of the oversized cargo.

"We have set up a special Coordinating Council for traffic safety. It’s task is to shape a government program for improvement of road traffic safety. The burning task is to reduce the number of road accidents and injuries. We are allocating UAH 47 billion for road, introducing new standards, we have changed the state building standards. The program "500-500-1000" is being implemented, which contains traffic circles and island sites. This will be instrumental in reducing  negative phenomena. A sum worth UAH 2.6 billion was allocated exclusively for (issues of) security. This year, citizens should feel that the roads became safer", the Prime Minister claimed.

The attendees discussed the application of new norms in the construction of roads, the use of world experience, as well as the issues of patrol police, including in the context of the possibility of using automated means of control of movement.

According to the proposal of the Head of Government, additional government decisions on these issues will be shortly worked out and will be approved at one of the next Government session.

"It is better to check (and ensure the road safety), rather than seeing horrible accidents in Kharkiv and in other cities, Volodymyr Groysman emphasized, attention was not paid to the issues of roads in Ukraine for years. Just like the traffic safety issue. We have to change the situation. We do not need to spend money, instead we need to invest in order to get the desired effect".

The Prime Minister also noted that the Government's approach to traffic safety issues  should have international support.

"At present, we need to shortly develop a state program. Next, we will engage the local authorities in this process, so they could shape their regional programs based on our best practices (traffic safety)", the Head of Government underscored.

Background

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, within the framework of pursuing of the traffic safety improvement policy, as well as in a bid to improve the quality of road construction, has set up a Coordinating Council on traffic safety issues under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister. The corresponding decision was announced by Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman in February of this year.

The Head of Government also held a special meeting, during which he outlined the expansion of the country's logistics capabilities and enhancement of traffic culture and initiated the process of implementation of a comprehensive action plan on improvement of the traffic safety in Ukraine, which contains plans for the construction of 500 new traffic circles, 500 island sites and 1000 crosswalks - program "500-500-1000". The program is planned for three years and provides that from now on design, construction, putting in exploitation of roads should take into account the safety demands.