Prevencinių priemonių taikymo problema užkertant kelią kelių eismo taisyklių pažeidimams

Abstract

Upon joining the European Union, an accident rate and road safety in Lithuania has become a sore subject demanding actions to be taken to decrease the said indicators. Bad road safety situation is one of the obstacles hindering Lithuania‘s integration into the European Union. Moreover, this impedes the attraction of more foreign tourists into the country as in view of road safety Lithuania is regarded to be the country of increased risk. The Road safety policy in the Republic of Lithuania is guided by the Local Government that approves the state road safety programs for implementation by the respective state institutions such as: Lithuanian Road Administration under the Ministry of Communication, the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Public Health, and Police Department under the LR MIA etc. However currently, nearly the sole and principal institution able of practically affecting the road safety processes is named to be the police. Police work in the area of road safety is related not only with the control functions and punitive measures but also with application of preventive measures aiming to preclude the violations of road traffic rules before they are committed. However the police activity in the field of road safety is not very operative and efficient – in recent years the accident rate in the country has increased with correspondent rise in number of the dead and injured persons in road accidents. Bad situation in road safety cannot be attributed to the police activity only, though the organization of police activity, shortage of staff and poor supply obviously have negative impact on the police activity in the field of road safety, additionally, within the country, apart from police performance faults, the road safety is also influenced by social factors – lack of proper behavior of traffic participants, denial of universally binding norms, as well as by the legal factors – poor regulation of preventive measures, redundancy of police functions, mild penalty system for violations of the Road traffic rules. Upon elimination of at least part of the faults in the area of road safety and after due improvements, positive results are possible to reach.