Stiffer penalties essential if road safety to be improved

A POLICE “brain-storming” session involving British experts has concluded that stiffer penalties and better driving instructors and driving test examiners are a must if the island’s dire road safety record is to be improved.

Police Chief Andreas Angelides yesterday presented the findings of the first road safety seminar conducted on March 18 and 19 in Nicosia. The seminar was attended by British road safety experts.

Angelides said the seminar had considered ways of improving the attitude and road manners of local drivers and had concluded that road safety awareness could be increased by “stiffening penalties, more effective policing and the modernisation of relevant laws.”

There was also a need to “change and modernise the methods for examining driving test examiners and instructing driving instructors,” he said.

The police chief also said there was a need to keep drivers better informed of changes in traffic regulations.

Angelides said other recommendations to come out of the seminar were that police should increase road safety awareness liaison with schools.

He also called for greater local authority and private sector involvement in road safety campaigns. “What became evident from the British experience was that on the issue of road safety there is direct and active involvement of local authorities and private organisations, something which does not happen in our country,” Angelides said.

Cyprus has one of the highest road death rates in Europe. The police chief said the main causes for road accidents were speeding, violation of traffic regulations, sudden lane changes and drunk driving.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.