MOSCOW, February 4 (Itar-Tass) – Fines for traffic violations registered by video cameras on roads in the Moscow region amounted to 800 million roubles last year.
Video cameras also recorded 3.7 million traffic violations in 2012, Moscow Region police chief Nikolai Golovkin said on Monday, February 4.
“One hundred and forty-six automatic video cameras have been installed and are used on roads in the region in order to reduce the number of accidents and more than 800 million roubles have been collected from violators in fines,” he said.
Preventive measures taken last year helped reduce the number of road accidents in the region by 10 percent to 9,226. “The number of deaths as a result of road accidents decreased by 7 percent to 11,418,” Golovkin said.
Video cameras registered more than half of all traffic violations in Russia in 2012, traffic police said earlier.
Video cameras registered 22.5 million traffic violations this year in 5,000 sections of the roads where they are installed.
Cameras register mainly overspeeding as well a driving on the dedicated bus lanes, parking violations, running a red light, including at railway crossings.
The use of video cameras helps reduce the number of traffic violations considerably, traffic police said. “For example, in Kazan, where more than 80 percent of traffic violations are registered automatically, the number of deaths from road accidents decreased almost twofold,” traffic police said.
Video cameras registering traffic violations will appear in all Russian regions by 2020, according to the federal target programme “Improving Traffic Safety in 2013-2020”.
The programme, approved by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, October 29, 2912, aims to reduce mortality in road accidents by 2020 a time and a half from the 2010 level.
In addition to creating traffic violation video recording centres in all regions, the programme calls for active promotion of traffic rules among car owners.
In Moscow, more than 60 percent of all administrative offences on the roads are detected using technical means, including video cameras.
The number of video cameras on roads in Moscow will be increased significantly in the near future, the city’s chief traffic inspector Alexander Ilyin said earlier.
“Since the start of the year 2.250 million traffic violation tickets have been issued, and slightly over 1,000 complaints have been registered,” he said.
There are 185 video cameras in the streets of Moscow now but they have already helped reduce the number of road accidents with injuries by 12 percent. Besides, public transport has started moving faster by 30 percent on dedicated bus lanes after video cameras were installed there to prevent their use by private cars.
Ilyin said the number of cameras would increase to 600 by the end of this year and to 800 in 2013. “This is not the final figure. By the middle of next year we will see whether more are needed or not. There is no such need for the time being,” he said.
The number of cameras will be increased to 400 next year and to 800 by 2014 to cover almost 2,400 places.
Since July 1, 2008, traffic rules violations recoded by video cameras installed on major roads have been regarded as official proof of offence.