Bogdan Milchev to FACTI: State Agency for "Safe Traffic on the Roads is absolutely useless

The government has decided to urgently implement 37 measures to combat road accidents. The topic of road safety has become relevant again, after 12-year-old Siyana recently died in an accident. Will the measures work… Bogdan Milchev from the Institute for Road Safety (IPB) speaks to FACTI.

- Mr. Milchev, we have been talking to you about the topic of road safety for many years. Will we still be talking in the same way in 10 years? What do you think…
- In the last week I understood why we will never get better.

- Even never…
- Never or well, let me tell you how long we won't get better. As long as we are afraid! As long as we are afraid of reforms, we will have serious accidents on our roads. And we are afraid of changing. This is the very truth. Fear kills us.

- Why does fear kill us?
- Because every time there is a serious accident in our transport system, society rises up very angrily. And this anger is very quickly controlled. I will give a few examples. Siyana's father came out a few days ago and said that he would dedicate his life to changing the system. A few days later he said that the protests that are being organized were not political. The topic was not political. And what is it? I ask. The system is precisely political. The system is run by politicians. The next moment he suddenly says that what is being organized would not be a protest, but a prayer. Where will this prayer room be... In front of the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. And what... We will pray that Christ will come down to earth and change Bulgaria's transport system, so that we don't kill each other on the roads. Wonderful. And something else. The protesting parents of children who died on the road stopped demanding resignations overnight, and said "thank you for accepting us". I am referring to the meeting with Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov. What happened that one night... Only they know. From the Road Safety Institute, we are silenced in the media, on government websites. The media does not give a person with a critical opinion the opportunity to speak out. And at the Road Safety Institute, we can dissect our transport system. Now I want to thank you and the website Fakti.bg for giving us this opportunity.

- What exactly is our problem with road safety. Can you formulate it…
- Prime Minister Zhelyazkov, without wanting to, at the beginning of his speech a few days ago, hit it right on the head. He said that the problem was systemic. That's exactly what it is - systemic. Not because it's repeated, but because the system doesn't work as a system. I'm giving an example of a system problem. What does the "Road Infrastructure" Agency do? It has to take care of our roads, right? As long as it works as it has so far, until it starts publishing its monthly financial reports, until it clearly shows us each assignment - when, for how long, by whom and for how much money it will be carried out, so that this outside system control can be implemented, our roads will never become safer. The State Agency for "Road Safety" - you know, there is one. It was created six years ago after the incident in Svoge, when a bus fell and 20 people died. It exists and was supposed to implement the same package of measures. This state agency was created on my initiative. What does this state agency do? During these six years, six prime ministers of Bulgaria have changed, but the chairman of this agency is irreplaceable – Malina Krumova. And each of the governments during this period had the same problem with road safety. Do you know why no personnel and structural changes were made in this agency, which is authorized solely to be responsible for road safety and is directly subordinate to the prime minister? Because not a single Bulgarian prime minister understood why this agency was created and what it should do.

Therefore, congratulations to Malina Krumova. This is the best Bulgarian administrator who managed to teach 39 people to breathe underwater for six years.

No one in society understood the meaning of the existence of this agency. I, as the ideologist of this agency, immediately call on Prime Minister Zhelyazkov to either make urgent personnel and structural changes in this agency, or to close it. The State Agency for “Road Safety” is absolutely useless. And something else that is shocking. This agency has transferred 480,000 leva of our money, instead of going to roads and meaningful policies, to bTV, Nova TV and several radio stations for media time. This for me is the biggest “crime” that can be committed by a civil servant.

When we have a problem with money, when we have a shortage of funds - to buy media time. This is insane.

I insist and want to use your authoritative media to call on bTV, Nova TV and “Alpha Research“ to return the money, because they advertise their complicity in the madness on the road, or at least that's how they do it so that we can use this money more rationally. The state agency gave “Alpha Research“ 230,000 leva to measure speed and whether we are driving with seat belts!? After all, there is a Ministry of Internal Affairs that can do this work without money. Or the state agency itself does not have employees to do this work...

- When did this happen?
- From April to the end of 2024. In less than a year, nearly 1 million leva has been distributed for various projects, all insane. Do you understand what we are talking about, and now they are giving us 37 measures with which we will stop tragedies on the road.

- We are not hearing some of the measures for the first time…
- The measures cannot possibly yield results. I brought out a few things, and I said others during the meeting with Prime Minister Zhelyazkov, which I attended. A board for investigating accidents will be created by Grozdan Karadjov… Oh my God. A board that will investigate accidents!? How exactly will this help road safety in the short term!? Who will work on this board, since currently three pensioners who are over 65 years old work on the board for investigating airplane and train accidents. How will this board help!? What is the point of this board, since serious accidents are currently being investigated and we can get documents for every investigation in the court phase to see the circumstances and everything that interests us. Another “important” thing they tell us is that unbranded Ministry of Interior cars will be lurking on the road for us.

- There are those even now…
- But, of course there are. They simply don't know the system at all. They will create a school for auto experts so that cases can be resolved faster. What a miracle this is. We will train people to do expert assessments faster. If accidents continue to increase, this will not help. How exactly will this reduce the madness on the road!? So what do we expect? There will be accidents, but we will have more people to give opinions as experts and the case will go faster. After all, the goal is to reduce accidents, not to have accidents. I will give you an example of how they are reduced. When I became the head of the Traffic Police in 2011, instead of writing tickets, we started to help traffic in Sofia. The effect was 30% fewer tickets and fewer queues at the Traffic Police.

- So there is a way to do it?
- There is a way to do everything, if you want to. The other "brilliant" thing - detecting the average speed. This is something that is very late. The chairman of GERB Boyko Borisov is wrongly informed that the use of cameras in the toll system will solve the problems of road safety. Measuring the average speed has not started for six years, and it cannot start, not only because of technical problems. Our entire infrastructure is broken. Measuring the average speed has many peculiarities. Let me give you an example. The speed limit - how fast we can drive on a given section of the road - changes from frame to frame dozens of times. And this requires constant readjustment of the cameras. Such problems will arise that I can't even imagine. More laboratories would be doing alcohol and drug tests.

- We heard this from Nikolay Denkov how it would be ready in 3 months, while he was prime minister…
- These are measures that are only on paper. And the biggest madness was said by Grozdan Karadjov, that the goal of these measures is to reduce the number of victims by 20%. Which victims, Mr. Karadjov? Over what period of time will these victims be reduced by 20%? How did you calculate that the victims will be reduced by exactly 20%, and not by 15%, 18% or 25%. On what basis did you calculate this? Or like at the Women's Market - we have a 20% reduction in salad, and we will reduce the victims on the road by the same amount. How are they not ashamed! I wonder about that. How are they not ashamed to flood us with such demagogy. 20% fewer victims means that by the end of the year there will be 90 fewer people killed. For example. And you know what they will say later... They will say that they did not say by when the victims will be reduced by 20%. This sounds like that line from a movie: "Daddy will buy me a bike, but another one..." Years ago there was a minister who was said to be the "10% Minister". Karadjov will now be nicknamed "20% Minister". What he said is insane nonsense. But something has to be said, something has to be covered up.

- But measures are still needed, because we really are losing a lot of people in an absolutely ridiculous and stupid way on the road...
- We need to build a completely new system. Understand that these are four main institutions - the State Agency for “Road Safety“, the “Road Infrastructure“ Agency, the “Automobile Administration“ Executive Agency and “Road Police“. They simply need to work as a single mechanism with a common goal and with coordination from the State Agency for “Road Safety“, which Malina Krumova was unable to do for 6 years. It is necessary to create a methodology that is clear, to identify the risks and prioritize them. This is an expert conversation, this is not a conversation for the public. And it is very important - transparency in the work of the institutions and allowing the public to control this activity. This means that everything that the state does, before doing it, must be clearly and publicly stated, explained. We submit many signals from the Road Safety Institute, but they do not process them at all. And our signals are not only related to bad roads. We - from the Road Safety Institute, constantly signal the institutions about problems in their work and they do not answer us. Why? Because they have nothing to tell us. So there is no way we can get better until we change the system, and changing the system means new politicians, but we are afraid. And that is why at this stage we will continue to talk until the next serious accident. And so.