Video: 'We Are in a Very Bad Situation' - Torosyan on Road Accident Victims

Back in 2015-2016, seeing that the Traffic Police were not ensuring road safety, I even thought of a Facebook hashtag: 'Dissolve the Traffic Police'; in other words, we don’t need such Traffic Police, they should be dissolved, and taxpayer money should not be wasted. This was stated today, December 1, during a discussion on 'The Role of the Police in Ensuring Road Traffic Safety' by Arsen Torosyan, a member of the National Assembly from the ruling My Step faction.

'Fortunately, we went through that process and the Traffic Police were dissolved. We achieved our goal, and a new service, the Patrol Service, was created,' he said.

According to Torosyan, 12 people die annually in road accidents for every 100,000 residents in Armenia, which is higher than in countries with more vehicles and greater speed limits. 'There is a country that has no speed limits, their vehicle density is much higher than that of Armenia per capita, but they have 3-4 fatalities. This means we are in a very bad situation.'

The deputy noted that it is known that people do not buckle up while driving, but since the windows are tinted, it is not visible whether they are buckled or not. 'If the windows were not tinted, you could see the seat belt, talking on the phone, and smoking. All three of these are prohibited, but since they are not visible, they are not dealt with. Now it has become clear that it is visible, but still, no one is addressing it. I believe that our Patrol Service needs to bring about substantive changes on our roads, in addition to changes in form. I do not think that changes for the sake of form will be of any use to anyone,' he emphasized.

He announced that 9 out of 10 drivers in Armenia are not buckled up. 'I suggested to the police, let’s declare a day and say that after this date we will be intolerant towards such violations. After that, there would be violations regarding child seats, smoking, talking on the phone, buckling up rear seat passengers, illegally changing high beams that blind the front drivers, driving with fog lights on, and making winter tires mandatory,' Arsen Torosyan said.