MOSCOW, September 25 (Itar-Tass) —— Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a tougher punishment for drunk driving. “The legislation should be toughened,” the president said in comments on the Saturday road accident, when the drunk driver ran down seven people to death in Moscow.
Putin commented on a statement of the drunk driver, who said, “I always do what I want.” “The gates of freedom opened, and we began to believe that everything is permitted, the boundaries of freedom and duties became vague,” Putin noted. This tragedy is not only the problem of a low general cultural level, he said. “It is necessary to punish for some offences, it cannot be another way round,” the president said with confidence.
The president named the culprit of the Saturday road accident as “a criminal and killer.” He gave as an example “developed countries, where those who commit such crimes are punished very toughly.” “If not to do so, such tragedies will occur everywhere,” the president said.
“Probably, all of us are blamed for this, all of us should do a more serious work for making the cultural level higher,” Putin remarked. “We should do a much more refined, substantial work for a higher cultural level,” he said.
Thus, the president gave a response to a speech by Russian film director Karen Shakhnazarov, who admitted that he is thinking constantly about the Saturday road accident with the drunk driver running down seven people. Shakhnazarov did not rule out that this road accident could have been avoided, if the cultural level of the driver had been higher. “Probably if the driver had visited the St. Isaac Cathedral, this would have been helpful,” he underlined.