You have ruined this road safety. Once again the Road Traffic Act is being violated. Didn't you understand that if the law could stop deaths on the roads, the whole of Europe would have one law. The RIA action plan is crisis PR, which conceals deep dependencies. The State Agency “Road Traffic Safety“ (is there such a thing?) is making an unsuccessful attempt to wake up from its six-year sleep. This was stated by the Institute for Road Safety and added:
We often give Greece as an example. Well, look at the Greeks - already in 2021 they identified 7,000 dangerous sections (there are 36 in Bulgaria so far) and found money from Europe to fix them. While today we are protesting against society, which was to blame for the tragedies on the roads. Society, you see, was to blame! Soon we will probably demand the resignation of society. Fear is killing us, dear society. The fear of naming the problems. That's what we are to blame for, because of the fear in our country!
We will change the system, but we will not touch the politicians. As if the system is not governed by politicians and they are outside of it. Which system will we change then? The protests were not political, we do not want anyone to resign, we thank the government for identifying 37 road safety measures (the same measures that were identified in 2018 after the tragedy at Svoge) and today we are protesting against ourselves?!
Statement of the Road Safety Institute:
On 11.04.2025, the "Road Infrastructure" Agency published a map of the sections with a concentration of road accidents on its website. An Action Plan for securing the sections was also published. This news sounds quite impactful for society.
The experts of the Road Safety Institute reviewed the map and the action plan and found the following:
Ø The identified sections are only on the national road network.
Ø The main safety consists of replacing signs, markings and repair work on the road surface.
Ø The deadline for the implementation of construction and installation works varies from June 30 to July 30
Ø Almost all sections are 100 meters long.
With the action plan presented to us in this way, numerous shortcomings are visible:
A comprehensive risk assessment of the RPM and the municipal road network has not been carried out. From Table 1 (see below) it is clear that in cities there are more accidents with injuries and fewer with fatalities. The ratio of killed and injured in road accidents in populated and non-populated areas shows us that 45% of black spots are located on municipal roads.
According to the international risk management standard BDS ISO 31000:2011, risk is classified as low, medium and high. The concept of “increased risk“ does not exist in risk assessment, because it must be specified in relation to what the increase is. In 2023, the IPB presented a risk assessment of the entire road network of Bulgaria. 1380 points with medium and high risk were identified. Nearly half of them are located in cities. Just for information, Greece in 2021 identified 7000 points with high risk and requested 450 million. EUR financing from the European Investment Bank for targeted reduction of the risk of road accidents.
According to the established methodology, a risk assessment should be carried out on a geographical basis, then roads with a high risk of road accidents in the relevant areas should be identified and finally the so-called black spots should be established. Then, all black spots are surveyed and a number is assigned to them. The point with the lowest number has the highest risk of a serious road accident. According to the resources, an action plan is made and action is started on the points with the highest risk. All this should have been done by the State Agency “Road Traffic Safety“ several years ago. The impact on the black spots is carried out by the Ministry of Interior, IAAA, RIA and DABDP according to the audit reports from the inspections of the black spots.
It is clear that all these actions have not been carried out and we can categorically conclude that the RIA action plan will not achieve effective management of the risk of road accidents. It is aimed solely at improving the infrastructure, but in a large part of the black spots other measures need to be implemented.
Valuable time has been lost by DABDP in order not to impose this reactive approach, which aims only to calm public tension. RIA is not able to oppose the incompetence and negligence that has engulfed the entire transport system on its own.
We categorically insist that the risk management approach be changed and that action be taken in accordance with the international risk management standard BDS ISO 31000:2011.