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The meeting was attended by Minister of Communications and Mass Media Nikolai Nikiforov, Minister of Healthcare Veronika Skvortsova, Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov, and Deputy Minister of Interior Viktor Kiryanov, who is also the commission's deputy chairman, as well as representatives of ministries, departments and public organisations included in the commission. Participants discussed the 2012 situation in traffic safety and measures to improve legislative and law enforcement practices in this area. They discussed developing and implementing organisational and legal mechanisms, reducing the time needed to write traffic accident reports with material damages and tightening the measures for monitoring vehicle weight.
Representatives of the State Inspectorate for Road Traffic Security (road police) of the Ministry of Interior mentioned the increasing number of drunk driving cases – the most socially dangerous offence. According to their data, the number of such cases increased by 4.8% to 12,843 cases in 2012.
In this regard, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov issued instructions to conduct a special inter-departmental road police raid with the participation of the Ministry of Civil Defence, Emergencies and Disaster Relief, the Ministry of Healthcare, and other law enforcement agencies and voluntary organisations – mainly in the regions with the highest drunk driving accident mortality. This raid is aimed at the large-scale detection of drunken drivers and studying measures to improve administrative policy in this area. Mr Shuvalov said, in particular: “Drunk driving is the worst form of individual irresponsibility. It is necessary to intensify work on preventing such crimes and developing organisational and legal standards for their prevention. It is necessary to make this raid a maximally public event for all citizens, so that they can clearly see and realise — why people get killed on roads – and to make conclusions. This preventive and information work will surely produce results.”
The participants also discussed the issue concerning numerous cases of the non-payment or the delay of fine payments. The commission approved Mr Nikiforov's proposal to use various types of communication means to pay fines, such as, for example, SMS.
The participants also discussed the mandatory use of winter tyres – and skid chains when necessary. Although the Eurasian Economic Commission's technical regulation on winter tyres comes into effect on January 1, 2015, Mr Shuvalov issued instructions to develop measures for using winter tyres in the 2013-2014 winter period and to develop a relevant law. He also issued instructions to analyse international experience in this area and to resolve issues on seasonal use of winter tyres.
In addition, the commission heard a report by Republic of Tatarstan’s Deputy Prime Minister Asgat Safarov on implementing the Avtodoria pilot project in Tatarstan on traffic offence photo enforcement. The system takes shots of speeding cars on road sections with posted speed limits. Mr Shuvalov issued instructions to review and legally introduce the system. The regions will have the right to decide on the system's needs. The Avtodoria pilot project will launch in Tatarstan on March 1, 2013.
