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Russian police plan to bring to justice for bad roads

MOSCOW, July 24. /ITAR-TASS/. Russia’s Interior Ministry has suggested that the Criminal Code be amended with a separate article that will bring to justice those responsible for automobile road defects bringing about tragic accidents, Deputy Interior Minister Alexander Savenkov said.

In his interview with the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily that is to be published on Thursday, Savenkov said that criminal cases over road accidents inflicting deaths and heavy injuries are the most common among other criminal cases the police investigate [over 60% of the country’s all criminal probes - eds Itar-Tass.]

“We are losing more people on roads than in a war,” Savenkov said adding that “it is not just a figure of speech. Year on year about 30,000 people die on the roads, with a quarter out of them to be of the most active working age. Road accidents damage the country’s economy with a loss of 2.5% of GDP.”

“The statistics data say that unsatisfactory condition of the roads is the prime cause of one in four road accidents with tragic consequences,” the deputy minister said.

“We suggest that the Criminal Code article dealing with crimes related to traffic safety and use of vehicles be amended with introduction of criminal liability for failing to observe law regulations in the designing, building, reconstruction, major overhauling and maintenance of automobile roads,” he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Russia’s Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika said that “the road accidents registered in the first half of the year left 45,000 people dead or wounded in just two districts [the Central and North-Western Federal Districts], with nearly a third of all accidents provoked by an unsatisfactory condition of roads.

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