“Leaving our home, office, school, each of us becomes a participant in road traffic, as a pedestrian, passenger or a driver. But not every day everyone comes home alive and well. Let us be responsible pedestrians, drivers and passengers! Let us educate our children in obeying the law! Let us protect health and life by guaranteeing to ourselves and to the public that road safety is our personal mission!” With these words, the Bulgarian Minister of the Interior Mladen Marinov addressed all institutions and citizens on the occasion of the World Day of Remembrance 2019 for the victims of road accidents – November 17. The initiative was started by the UN back in 2005, and this year the motto is "Life is not a car part".

When it comes to road accidents numbers and figures in Bulgaria are alarming. Since the beginning of the year to the end of October, the number of serious crashes in which there were dead or injured people has reached 5,607, with 517 dead and 7,103 injured. For the same period in 2018 serious road accidents were 5669, with 500 dead and 7202 injured.

“Most of the times those responsible for road accidents remain vehicle drivers. Next come pedestrians, while misconduct of a passenger, road conditions, technical malfunction of a vehicle and improper speed are among the other reasons for traffic accident,” Maria Boteva, police inspector in the Traffic Police Department at the National Police Directorate General says.

Statistics on accidents with pedestrian are also alarming. During the period under review, there were 108 killed and 1255 injured out of a total number of 1298 accidents. However, traffic police statistics show that pedestrians caused the accident in just 1% of the cases.

“We must act more responsibly when we are behind the wheel, because the road is not ours, there are other people and some of them are more vulnerable: drivers of two-wheeled vehicles like bicycles, motorcycles, and scooters. Pedestrians, children and elderly people are also at risk, so we have to be very careful about them,” Maria Boteva points out.

Throughout the year, the Traffic Police Department conducts control and prevention campaigns:

“We need to be more patient and instead of being angry about checks, we should be aware that without control there will be no way of detecting violations and taking action against violators. Apart from campaigns, control is part of prevention, and it has big educational effect on violators,” Maria Boteva says.

Traditionally, from November 11 until November 17, services will be held in all temples of the major religions in Bulgaria, with prayers for preserving the lives of all who travel on the country's roads and with an appeal to the Lord to forgive the sins of those who are no longer among us.

“Life is not a car part, we cannot replace it. When we lose our lives, there is no going back. Let's spread the motto in the future, not only today, because one day everyone talks about it, but the next day one forgets that life is not a car part,” police inspector Maria Boteva says.

English: Alexander Markov