Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called on Thursday for global measures to be taken to improve road safety
Speaking at a road safety conference in Moscow, he said a special program should be set up to train drivers to render medical assistance to people involved in road accidents. "Everyone should have elementary skills of assisting those in trouble," he said.
Over 1.3 million people die each year on the world's roads.
Russia is hosting the First Global Ministerial Conference on Road Safety on November 19-20 on the request of the UN General Assembly. Government ministers, leaders of private companies and road safety experts are attending.
Medvedev said that annually "a megalopolis disappears from the global map, and over 50 million people are injured" in road accidents.
"The price of human suffering cannot be measured, but the damage inflicted to national economies by road accidents can. This damage totals over $500 billion annually, with over $100 billion in developing countries," he said.
Medvedev called for universal laws banning drivers with suspended licenses from getting behind the wheel in any country.
Laws must be established "that would give clear signals for all drivers. For example, a driver suspended in one country should not be able to drive in another without special authorization."
He also said that efforts to improve the road safety situation must include not only punitive sanctions and fines but also improvements to the quality of roads and modernizing of road infrastructure.
He called the situation on Russia's highways difficult.
"Russia has approved a national strategy to increase road traffic safety, and a federal targeted program aimed at reducing by 2012 the number of road accidents by 33% has been working since 2006, but still the situation in this sphere remains very hard."
According to official statistics, nearly 30,000 people died on Russian roads last year. "Despite numerous measures, this trend is not improving as substantively as we would like it to," Medvedev said.
MOSCOW, November 19 (RIA Novosti)
