While the construction of highways is still pending, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s roads continue to claim lives. Penalties for suspended driving have recently been toughened, but can tougher sanctions really bring greater safety on the roads?
More severe penalties fill police bulletins for more than a month. 754 misdemeanor warrants were issued in Sarajevo Canton from the end of May to June 30. Mostly due to using a mobile phone while driving, but also almost 120 due to suspended driving, which can cost up to 5,000 marks, along with a driving ban, penalty points, and even confiscation of the vehicle. While some welcome rigorous punishments, others are of the opinion that milder ones would achieve the result.
It is precisely the amount of the fine and timely collection that could improve the situation on the ground, says the profession. They add that it was high time that the term suspended driving was legally defined.
Adis Imamović, court expert in the field of traffic:
“A normal driver cannot drive drunk, cannot be under the influence of alcohol over 1.5 per thousand in blood, cannot overtake a column of vehicles across a full line, or pass two or more red lights in 20 minutes, I believe that normal drivers do not need to fear the amount of a fine because this cannot happen to them, this happens to repeat offenders, drivers who are primarily really arrogant.”
Mirzet Sarajlić, traffic expert:
“These violations cannot be reduced to the level where we will say we are filling the budgets, this is really about the enormous speeds that develop, passing through red lights, where no special experts are needed to explain why it is dangerous.”
However, despite tougher penalties, the black statistics continue to grow. During the weekend, two young men were killed and three people were injured in a traffic accident near Tešnj. Another collision between a car and an electric scooter was recorded in Sarajevo, in which one person was injured. The capital city also needs infrastructure improvements, says former police minister, Nermin Pećanac.
Nermin Pećanac, former Minister of the Interior of the KS:
“Provision of traffic roads, modernization, etc., otherwise we can pass laws as much as you want, if we don’t have parking spaces, regulated traffic and at rest, we will have problems, Sarajevo is increasingly suffering from this number of vehicles, and traffic roads have more or less remained at the post-war level, not to say pre-war.”
The main question is no longer whether stricter penalties are needed, but whether they really change the behavior of drivers, he writes N1 BiH.
