Road safety

More than 10,000 traffic violations have been sanctioned during the holidays, mostly speeding, driving under the influence, and failure to wear a seat belt.

This is according to Aleksandar Radenkovic of the Traffic Police, who added that approximately 500 drunk drivers were discovered over this period and excluded from traffic.

Chief Directorate National Police has called on drivers not to travel during the period January 5-7 unless it is extremely necessary, announced the press centre of the Interior Ministry.

Drivers who have had their license plates confiscated by police for minor offenses can reclaim them as of Monday, authorities said.

The decision was made to facilitate circulation during the holidays.

The rule does not apply to drivers who have committed serious offenses, such as driving under the influence, speeding, running a red light or driving an uninsured vehicle.

Road police officers are beginning mass inspections in the country in order to check whether drivers have prepared their vehicles for the winter.

Under Operation Winter, drivers may now be fined between BGN 20 and BGN 50 if their lights, tyres and the heating inside the car are not in order. The fine may reach BGN 150 for more serious offences.

No prison time will be served for speeding. This was decided by Parliament in a vote at second reading of the amendments to the Penal Code proposed by GERB.

The proposal was for prison time of up to three years to be served when breaking the speed limit by over 60 km/h in populated areas.

The proposal was rejected with 15 votes "for", 62 "against" and 54 abstentions.

According to numbers provided by the police, 2,222 of the traffic accidents in the first nine months of 2016 led to deaths and 137,554 involved injuries.

Turkey saw 307,608 traffic accidents in the first nine months of this year, with 2,172 people killed in those accidents and 234,458 injured.

The flow of traffic on different sections of Olympias Street in central Piraeus is being diverted due to construction work for the local tramline.

The round-the-clock disruption will continue until January 2, 2017, according to local authorities, who are advising drivers to follow road signs in place for the duration of the construction work.

Turkish news channel NTV ran a story on Oct. 7. The story, read by a speaker on the radio, sounded quite cohesive, logical and consistent in a country where such news narratives are extremely rare.

There have been over 2,000 traffic-related accidents at pedestrian crossings in the three largest cities - Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna in the period January, 2013-June, 2016, showed data presented by the Interior Ministry.

As of today until the end of the month, traffic through the Kocherinovo road section of the Struma highway will be fully re-routed, announced the Road Infrastructure Agency.

The aim is to improve the organisation of traffic and increase safety. The amount needed for the construction works is BGN 300,000. The money will be provided by the Road Infrastructure Agency.