NovaMova LLC

11/17/08

Traffic Problems in Ukraine

Ukraine to Crack Down on Chatty Drivers

By Paul Farley, Nova Mova co-owner, from Internet sources.

Like most people in the developed world, Ukrainians have a love affair with their mobile phones. In the major cities, like Kyiv, Kharkiv, Odesa and Lviv, you can hardly look in any direction without seeing people walking along the streets with phones pressed to their ears.

But with this love of mobile phones, as in other countries, have come the usual problems: people in public becoming oblivious to everything except their phone conversations, phones ringing disruptively during movies and theater performances, loud and obnoxious phone conversations in cafes and restaurants, and – worst of all – drivers creating serious hazards by trying to chat and drive at the same time.

Poor Driving, Plus Phones, Equals Fatalities

Ukrainian drivers are not among the world’s best to begin with. Drivers routinely flout traffic laws, as well as basic safety. Self-absorbed drivers ignore stop signs and run red lights, jockey for position when they do stop for the lights, pass each other illegally, and are mostl intolerant of those pesky irritants called pedestrians. Crossing a road – even under the green “walk” signal – can be dangerous enough in Kyiv, Kharkiv and other cities. But when drivers are engrossed in their phone conversations, the results can be fatal.

This is why Ukrainian authorities have finally decided to crack down on drivers who create even greater danger by trying to talk and drive at the same time. An increased enforcement effort, backed by higher fines for violators, took effect on Monday, November 17, 2008.

“We have no choice but to deal with the problem strictly,” said Sergey Budnik, a spokesman for the DAI. “This is a matter of national urgency.”

Budnik said that chatty drivers are now one of the worst traffic problems in the country. He said that mobile phone conversations used to be an exotic indulgence of the very wealthy, but now they are commonplace and have become one of the leading causes of traffic accidents and death.

Abysmal Traffic Statistics

Ukraine’s statistics for traffic accidents and deaths – especially those involving mobile phone use – are some of the worst in the world. According to the DAI, one in four Ukrainian traffic accidents are caused by one or more motorists' trying to simultaneously drive and talk on a mobile phone. In 2007 alone there were more than 60,000 traffic accidents and 8,000 deaths linked to mobile phone use.

But the severity of these numbers is magnified when Ukraine is compared to other automobile- and phone-loving nations. Per capita, Ukraine’s overall rates of accidents and deaths are seven times higher than in the United States and 14 times worse than in Germany, according to statistics from the Ukrainian Ministry of Transport.

The combination of poor drivers and mobile phones are killing thousands of people each year, and this fact prompted action at the highest levels of the government. Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, whose aim has always to bring about market and legal reforms that would help Ukraine improve its relations with Europe, pushed hard over the summer for the Ukrainian legislature to pass new traffic laws.

The new law dictates a minimum fine of 350 hryvniyas (about US$70) for drivers caught driving and talking at the same time. The minimum fine is 425 hryvniyas (about $85) if a child is in the car. The previous fine was only a paltry 30 hryvnias (about $6.00).

But Will it be Effective?

There are serious questions, however, about whether such a law can be effective in a country where people routinely find ways around authorities and where the traffic police are considered among the most corrupt institutions. One driver said that he would just hide the phone in his lap and talk louder if he was approaching a police officer, and he added that in Ukraine, “you can always just bribe the cop.”

The DAI admits that corruption in the ranks continues to be a problem, but claims that new technical advances and improved salaries for officers are improving the situation. Many traffic police cars now have digital recorders that must be turned on when officers are issuing tickets so that the conversation between the officer and the violator will be recorded verbatim.

Also, speed-control radar guns will now have high-resolution, digital cameras with telephoto lenses, which will give the authorities photo evidence, from longer distance, of drivers using their phones while behind the wheel. “Drivers can argue all they want, but it's hard to disprove a photograph,” said Nina Hmelivska, an Internal Affairs Ministry spokeswoman.

But most drivers believe the situation will not improve much, despite the efforts to better identify violators and to keep the cops honest. For most drivers, breaking the traffic laws is a deeply ingrained way of life in Ukraine. And most believe that the only result will be an increase in the cost of the bribes.

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