What can be done tom improve road safety

Sir,
I have only been in Cyprus since February and after reading your latest of numerous articles on the subject of the road fatality toll, I somewhat stoically could suggest that until Cypriot drivers can master a simple driving manoeuvre such as parking within parking bays, what chance has the country got for reducing the road toll?

You ask what more can be done (somewhat defeatedly)? Try perhaps the approach of numerous progressive western governments including:

i) a whole of government approach to the matter (that is not merely a police enforcement response)
ii) intelligence led policing initiatives
iii) random and targeted breath testing stations
iv) the use of modern speed detection devices i.e.: mobile radar, fixed speed cameras, red light cameras, and piezo strips.
v) a licensing and registration points demerit system for offenders
vi) compulsory driver training courses for new drivers (concentrating on attitude as merely skills)
vii) long-term public awareness campaigns with a view to making serious driving offences garner some social stigmatism
viii) specific targeting of repetitive (at risk) offenders
ix) mandatory court penalties for persons convicted of serious driving offences, including a sliding scale for repeat offenders
x) issuing seizure powers for police with regard to vehicles used in serious traffic offences
xi) causing driver licensing tests to move the emphasis away from the three point turn, reverse park and hill start to more appropriately test for skills and attitudes that make for safer driving, i.e.: observation, anticipation, concentration and driver attitude.
xii) recognition of accident blackspots and civil engineering works to improve the same.
These are but a few ideas and most often move the emphasis away from direct punishment, and on to both deterrence and more importantly, to invoke a paradigm shift in community attitudes to conduct that should be seen as anti-social, unacceptable and dangerous.

CM, Ayios Dhometios

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.