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20,000 pedestrians fined in Baku this year

6 March 2013 14:21 (UTC+04:00)
20,000 pedestrians fined in Baku this year

By Nigar Orujova

Some 20,000 pedestrians have been fined in the Azerbaijani capital Baku over traffic violations since January 1, according to Vagif Asadov, a department head at the city's traffic police department.

The aim of raids conducted by the traffic police is to prevent road accidents leading to pedestrians' death, Asadov said. He added that action against pedestrians improperly crossing the road will be stepped up.

According to Asadov, most of the pedestrians, mainly aged 20-50, were fined for crossing the road in the wrong places.

51.5 percent of the road accidents in Baku in 2012, which resulted in 59 deaths and 422 injuries, were related to vehicles' running into pedestrians.

According to the Azerbaijani law, violation of road traffic rules by pedestrians is punishable by a fine of 20 manats ($25).

Measures on promoting road crossing culture have become more intense in the capital, which can be seen from the increasing number of fines imposed on pedestrians.

According to the Baku State Traffic Police Department, some 22,000 pedestrians were fined in 2012, while only 2,604 faced fines in 2011.

The traffic problem is one of the most acute in Baku. Recently, a plan of measures on resolving the issue in 2013-2015 was discussed at the Transport Ministry.

The plan includes elimination of land-based crosswalks on the multilane roads and construction of overland and underground crosswalks to step up safety and increase traffic intensity.

More crosswalks, underground and overland pedestrian crossings have been constructed in Baku. However, pedestrians continue to violate road crossing rules. The culture of proper behavior on the road has to be engrained from childhood.

A number of projects to increase children's awareness of road traffic culture and road safety are implemented in Azerbaijan annually. The main goal of these efforts is to enhance measures to prevent children and teenagers from getting involved in car accidents.

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