What can a familiar pedestrian crossing turn into with the introduction of new safety standards? How to make it noticeable and make the driver slow down in front of him?
The Institute of the Ministry of Transport of RosdorNIA has prepared a draft of new safety standards at pedestrian crossings, Kommersant writes. It has already passed the third edition.
As Business FM was told at the institute, the developers relied on both foreign experience and Russian statistics. According to the institute, last year more than 3 thousand pedestrians were killed on the country's roads, and more than 30 thousand were injured. Two-thirds of such assaults were the fault of drivers. And almost half of the collisions were at pedestrian crossings.
The main principle of the new GOST is to force the driver to slow down before the zebra. And make sure that the pedestrian is always visible, and from afar. Here all means are good, and some innovations were listed by the head of the traffic safety department of the FAA "RosdorNIA" Irina Golovchenko:
Irina Golovchenko
Head of the Traffic Safety Department of the FAA "RosdorNII":
"Placement regulations an unregulated pedestrian crossing on an artificial bump. We used the experience of foreign countries, such an uplifting artificial unevenness, and a pedestrian crossing is located on it. They are made in different ways: collapsible, can be made of paving stones, as in the centers of old cities in Europe. The position of the noise lanes in front of pedestrian crossings. Also by contrast coating device. The organization of zigzag movement of cars is recommended, which forces the driver to reduce the speed of movement."
The new GOST of RosdorNIA introduces several concepts unusual to Russian hearing: "refuge" — a protective block in front of the safety island so that the driver does not fly into pedestrians, "divertor" — a fence that will not allow the car to fly through the intersection, "chicane" — a term from Formula 1, a section of a zigzag road where you need to slow down speed up and drive carefully. How can all these innovations be applied to the old road network? The auto expert, coordinator of the public organization "Movement" Dmitry Zolotov argues:
Dmitry Zolotov
auto expert, coordinator of the public organization "Movement":
"GOST standards can to act only on those roads that will be designed and built, because it will be problematic to do the same S-shaped zigzag on existing roads. It may not be illuminated at night, it is very difficult to navigate there, for example, in rain or snow. As for the pedestrian crossing itself, many are already doing them, as there used to be speed bumps, and he is like this with a slight rise. Again, you need to understand that not all drivers are ready to slow down, they will fly through these pedestrian crossings at full speed, especially when the driver is drunk, it doesn't matter to him, the speed will be 20 there on the sign, 40, whatever, he will fly anyway."
There are no uniform requirements for the organization of pedestrian crossings in Russia now, they are all scattered according to different GOST standards, so such a document is long overdue, experts say. You can perceive the project as part of the Vision Zero program to achieve zero road deaths. Although Russia does not officially participate in it, but similar theses are constantly heard from the authorities, in particular, there were instructions from the president to reduce mortality. But the project from RosdorNIA is still damp, says the head of the Union of Pedestrians Vladimir Sokolov. He has already sent a couple proposals to the developers of GOST:
Vladimir Sokolov
head of the Pedestrian Union:
"The developers did not take into account that regulated pedestrian crossings are no safer than unregulated ones. Moreover, according to statistics, the probability of hitting a regulated pedestrian crossing is 1.9 times higher than on an unregulated one. People trust regulated pedestrian crossings more, relax there. The problem of collisions in the dark is not completely solved. According to statistics, out of 4.5 thousand dead pedestrians, more than 3 thousand were shot down at night, it is necessary to illuminate. Now the only universal solution is a slight reduction in speed, at least to 50 kilometers per hour."
The GOST project still has a lot of approvals. Now the traffic police are afraid that the sharp introduction of new rules will only lead to an increase in accidents. For example, the department did not like the zigzags on the roads, the road markings have their own rules that do not allow any "chicanes". RosdorNIA believes that all approvals will be received by the end of this year.