Corruption as a cause of road traffic accidents in Russia

Abstract

Over more than ten years, Russia has been at the top of the list of the OECD countries by traffic-related death rate per 1000 residents. The death rate in Russia is five- to six-fold greater than in most of the developed countries, given that the number of cars per 1000 residents is much lower. Despite the increased attention and financ-ing, the problem of road traffic injuries re-mains unresolved. The implementation of the 2006-2012 Road Safety Federal Target program did not bring about the expected results. Russia`s lagging behind the leading countries in traffic injury prevention is due to the ineffective system of law control and implementation. The problem of corruption in the road safety management is of special attention. According to a number of experts, today the political efforts to tackle the road safety problem is only aggravate the situation and contribute to the increase in corruption cases which shows the ineffectiveness of the policies. Effective road traffic safety policy requires a good knowledge of the situation. With the lack of scientific studies and regular publica-tions devoted to this problem, there is nothing left but taking impulsive and random decisions.