Deputy Minister Yovev: Road safety should be a firm commitment and common cause of all institutions and the whole society

This year alone, nearly 570 km of national roads are being rehabilitated and 193 km are being designed

"Road safety is not a unilateral process, but the responsibility of all road users, as well as road owners, designers and builders.  This responsibility must be realised by all and road safety must be a firm commitment and a common cause of all institutions and society as a whole."

This was said by Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Valentin Yovov, who participated in the sixth annual conference on "Safe Road Infrastructure".

 "When we talk about road safety, we inevitably focus on road accidents, and here the statistics are telling.  According to the Ministry of Interior, from the beginning of the year until July 31, there have been 3,032 serious road accidents in the country, 97% of them due to driver violations and only two of the crashes due to road conditions," Yovev said at the forum.

According to him, it is necessary to pay serious attention to the behaviour of drivers, their basic training and measures for their qualification and retraining.

Valentin Yovev was adamant that the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, as well as its structures, headed by the RIA, continue to make real efforts to improve the condition of the roads.

Since the beginning of this government's mandate, more than 80 km of new roads and facilities of the national road network have been built and hundreds of kilometers more are under construction.  The Hemus, Europa and Struma motorways are being completed, the Vidin - Botevgrad expressway is under construction, the Ruse - Veliko Tarnovo motorway is being prepared.  Efforts are also being made for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the national roads, during which time almost 1443 km of the national road network have been repaired. This year, nearly 570 km are being rehabilitated and 193 km are being designed under engineering - design and construction contracts.

 "Last but not least, we are working on the continuous improvement of the regulatory base for the construction and maintenance of the road infrastructure," added Eng. Yovev and recalled the increase of the warranty periods for the construction of national roads, as well as the requirements for their design. The control over supervision companies has also been strengthened with the amendments to the Law on Spatial Planning.

 "Road safety is influenced by a number of factors, such as driver self-awareness and training, as well as road infrastructure," said Eng.  Ivan Dosev - member of the Board of the Road Infrastructure Agency. " A large part of the repairs that are being made on the roads, whether complete or partial, are in the name of improving road safety and the comfort of commuters," Dosev stressed.

Before the participants in the forum, he presented the infrastructure projects currently implemented by the RIA in the country and announced that only this year on the national roads were placed restriction systems for almost 36.5 million BGN, road signs for almost 3.9 million BGN and road markings for over 1 million BGN.