The Ministry of the Interior plans to commission dozens of new automatic speed cameras this week and to return «Phantom» patrol cars to the roads in the near future. This was announced on 18 August by the Minister of the Interior, Ivan Vygivskyi. In the first few weeks of August, more than 1,300 road traffic accidents resulting in injuries were recorded in Ukraine.
Briefly about the main points
- Dozens of new speed cameras will come into operation within the week.
- The Patrol Police are to publish the addresses of the new complexes.
- «Phantoms» will detect speeding whilst driving in traffic.
- Before the invasion, they had identified more than 26,000 offenders in the space of about a month.
- The Ministry of the Interior is drawing up proposals to reduce the accident rate for the National Security and Defence Council.
The network of fixed-position speed cameras is to be expanded
The Patrol Police will publish the exact installation locations and sections of road where the new systems will be operational in the near future. As at 1 June automatic locking system comprising 376 fixed-position devices in 32 towns and cities and 18 regions.
Fixed monitoring stations are installed on stretches of road posing a high risk of accidents and in areas with a high concentration of road traffic accidents. However, in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, they are not operational due to ongoing hostilities.
How the «Phantom» patrol cars will operate»
«Phantoms» are special vehicles that look like any other car in the traffic but are fitted with automatic enforcement systems. They can detect speeding by other drivers whilst the patrol car itself is in motion.
Details of offences are fed into the automated recording system. Following verification, an authorised police officer may issue a notice of an administrative offence.
Such vehicles were already in use before Russia’s full-scale invasion: in the space of about a month, more than 26,000 drivers were prosecuted for speeding. Following the outbreak of the major war, their use was suspended. The Ministry of the Interior has not yet specified the number of vehicles that will return to service, nor the date of their full-scale deployment.
Proposals regarding systemic violations will be put before the National Security and Defence Council
Following a meeting attended by senior officials from the Ministry of the Interior, the National Police and the Patrol Police, the ministry has drawn up proposals to reduce the accident rate. These are to be presented at a meeting of the National Security and Defence Council.
The Ministry also supports tighter liability rules for drivers, … who systematically break the road traffic rules. In June, the government discussed a sliding scale of fines based on the extent of speeding, but no specific new penalties have yet been adopted.
Separately, the Ministry of the Interior is working with Members of Parliament on legislative proposals concerning passenger transport safety and the rules for operating light electric vehicles.
The Ministry of the Interior links the tightening of controls to the accident rate
Vygivskyi referred to a high-profile accident in the centre of Kyiv which, he said, only by a miracle did not result in any loss of life. The Ministry of Internal Affairs attributes the tightening of controls to the high accident rate and to the fact that speed affects the severity of the consequences of road traffic accidents.
The department states that the new measures are not merely aimed at increasing the number of fines. The stated aim is to comprehensively improve road safety and change the behaviour of road users.
