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Armenian Road Deaths Keep Rising


Armenia -- A police car races through heavy traffic in Yerevan, November 27, 2019.
Armenia -- A police car races through heavy traffic in Yerevan, November 27, 2019.

The number of officially registered traffic deaths in Armenia rose by nearly 6 percent to 368 last year, continuing a decade-long trend and underscoring the country’s poor road safety record.

Pedestrians accounted for about one-third of the victims of traffic accidents, according to the Armenian road police.

The police registered a sharper increase in overall vehicle accidents. They totaled 4,604, up by almost 15 percent from 2020.

A recent report released by the World Bank found that of the 32 countries of the European Union and the former Soviet Union involved in the EU’s Partnership Program Armenia has the second highest rate of traffic fatalities.

Arman Chilingarian, a deputy chief of the traffic police, blamed the growing car accidents and resulting deaths on a significant increase in the number of cars owned by Armenians. But he admitted that other factors have also been at play.

Experts believe those factors include a culture of reckless and dangerous driving as well as lenient policing. Some of them also point to the easing of traffic fines which Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government initiated after taking office in the 2018 “velvet revolution.”

During the revolution and in the immediate aftermath of it, Pashinian repeatedly lambasted Armenia’s former government for aggressively enforcing traffic rules with fines. His government forgave thousands of car owners that had refused to pay such fines imposed on them in previous months and years. It also reduced most of the legal penalties for traffic violations.

However, Pashinian’s government toughened some of them after traffic deaths surged from 279 in 2017 to 343 in 2018. Under new rules introduced by it in 2020, unruly motorists now risk not only fines but also points deductions that could result in the suspension of their driving licenses and even prosecution. The so-called a “credit system” has clearly not had desired effects so far.

Armenia’s National Innovation Center sponsored by the United Nations is now helping the government devise a comprehensive strategy of improving road safety.

“One of the reasons for what we now see in Armenia is that it has been quite difficult to diagnose the problem so far,” the head of the center, Tigran Chorokhian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

Chorokhian and other experts cite a lack of details in police data such as the percentage of traffic accidents caused by drunk driving. They say such information is essential for tackling the problem.

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