On 19 March, speaking at a meeting of the state commission on traffic safety held in the Government house of the republic with participation of the Head of the Traffic Safety Police of Russian Internal Ministry for Tatarstan Rustem Garipov, the regional Minister of Transport and Road Economy Farit Khanifov and heads of other regional Ministries and Directorates with all municipalities taking part in it via videoconference, Tatarstan Deputy Prime Minister, who is also the Head of the Office of the regional Cabinet of Ministers Shamil Gafarov stated that the republic attaches great attention to raising the traffic safety by implementing a number of measures for improvement the traffic situation, decreasing accidents rate and their consequences. In addition to replacement of road pavements, specialists are installing road signs and barriers and building sidewalks, mounting new traffic lights and quality road lighting, he informed.
Nevertheless the traffic situation remains complicated. “The results are not pleasing us yet. There is the big number of dead and injured people on federal, regional and municipal roads. These numbers are unacceptable. We are a one big team which must ensure safety of road users. For the last 10 years Tatarstan has shown one of the best results in decreasing accidents rate and the number of injured and this work should be continued,” Shamil Gafarov said.
In his turn Rustem Garipov informed that according to the results of 2023 there is a decrease of all main accidents indicators. As of March 18 of the current year there were 505 road accidents in the republic, killing 60 and injuring 637 people, he said and clarified that this was mostly caused by abnormal snowfalls this winter.
He also reported about measures which are planned to be taken for prevention of pedestrian knockdowns and tripping over parked cars, children’s traffic injuries and for stepping up monitoring violations of traffic.
Farit Khanifov reported to participants of the meeting that the Ministry together with the Traffic Safety Police carries out work for decreasing the number of accident clusters on roads of the republic analyzing the accident causes especially those with serious consequences. So far 137 such clusters have been found in Tatarstan with 20 of them located on regional roads, he said.
After the Head of the Federal Directorate of Auto Roads in Volga-Vyatka region Ildar Mingazov told the meeting about traffic safety provision measures on federal roads, Shamil Gafarov asked to continue social campaigns for raising awareness of traffic education especially at schools and kindergartens.