POLICE Corps President Jaroslav Spišiak says that high fines are currently the only way to force drivers who violate traffic rules to abide by the law.
In January 2009, when fine rates were low, over 4,000 traffic accidents occurred on the roads. In February 2009, when tougher fines came into effect, the number of accidents dropped sharply to below 2,000, and the figure remained almost unchanged throughout 2010, Spišiak stated, as reported by the SITA newswire.
“We have to threaten with fines to save human lives, whether people like it or not,” SITA quoted Spišiak as saying. He finds it most tragic that society in general thinks that breaching traffic rules is not a serious transgression though it often costs people their lives.
Spišiak also expects a radical turnaround in the development of the death rate on roads once a new system of assessing individual police officers is introduced.
“Each traffic policeman will be evaluated according to whether an accident happened in the section he was entrusted to control,” Spišiak said, adding that police officers will not just fine drivers, but will also prevent accidents.
