The Laughable "Buzzing" and "Flames" Caused by the Proposal to Limit Traffic Speed: Hakob Karapetyan

Hakob Karapetyan, spokesperson for the Yerevan Municipality, wrote on his Facebook page: “The ‘buzzing’ and ‘flames’ caused by the proposal to limit traffic speed are indeed very laughable. Especially when you remember that our men and women are killing three times more pure-blood Armenian civilians on the roads of Armenia than the Turkish dogs do at the border. In the first four months of 2019, 67 people died in traffic accidents in Armenia.

The old Facebook Armenian tradition of trivializing any topic through mockery brings to mind quite sad reflections in this case, where we are actually talking about saving people’s lives. International experts and organizations in the field have clear statistics showing that the number of fatal accidents significantly decreases at 50 km/h compared to 60 km/h, and even more so at 40 or 30 km/h. These statistics are justified by experience and calculations; as they say, these numbers break through walls.

And it seems that just this one argument—the saving of human lives—should be enough for the proposal to at least be calmly discussed during the holidays. But no, our noble brethren and sisters have found an opportunity to flare up, pointing out other problems in the city (‘are you all free?’, ‘let us sing all the songs, only the mountain stump is left’, ‘solve the issue of garbage (transport/elevator/greenery/asphalting/Nagorno-Karabakh/ozone layer/fresh garbage), then limit the speed, dude, what the hell?’).

Below is the analysis by famous Russian blogger Varlamov on ways to increase traffic safety and, in our case, to stop the slaughter of people on the roads.

P.S. I remind you that Mayor Marutyan spoke at the council meeting about ways to improve road safety, including increasing the number of regulated pedestrian crossings, the need for night lighting, and the need to tighten police control, as well as proposed discussing the issue of reducing speed.