Serbia's traffic police launch four-day crackdown
The Interior Ministry began its eighth central enforcement drive on July 30, running through August 2. The day before, 96 crashes left 50 people injured and none dead.
Serbia’s traffic police went out in force on July 30 for the eighth central traffic enforcement drive of the year. Patrols are working roads across the country and will stay out until August 2, four days in all. The trigger is in the daily tally the Interior Ministry (MUP) puts out every morning: 96 road crashes the previous day, with 50 people injured. Nobody was killed.
A central drive is not the same as routine patrol work. It runs for a fixed window and goes after a short list of offences agreed in advance, which is why crews get pushed onto the roads where those offences turn up most often.
What are police checking until August 2?
The Traffic Police Directorate named the offences its crews are working on over the four days:
- driving under the influence of alcohol or psychoactive substances
- carrying children in a vehicle without proper restraint
- speeding
- failure to wear a seat belt
The breathalyser is still the basic tool at the roadside. In its statement, the directorate told drivers:
We appeal to all drivers not to get behind the wheel under the influence of alcohol or psychoactive substances, which have a negative effect on perception and reaction.
That is not a throwaway line. During the previous drive, police detained drivers who blew over 1.20 per mille, while other drink-drivers were taken off the road on the spot.
The seventh drive showed the scale
The seventh central drive ran from July 13 to 19. When it ended, MUP published the numbers: more than 65,600 vehicles checked and close to 42,500 offences recorded.
Speed accounted for most of them. 25,881 drivers were caught above the limit. Another 3,916 drivers and passengers were riding without a seat belt. Alcohol took 1,790 drivers off the road, and 280 of them were detained.
The same week carried a second column of figures. Over that weekend, nine people died in road crashes: four car drivers, three pedestrians, a tractor driver and one car passenger.
Speed keeps coming back
Almost three in every five offences logged during the seventh drive involved speed. The ratio barely moves from one drive to the next, which is why interceptor cars keep being sent out onto the trunk roads.
We reported earlier on a driver stopped by an interceptor near Surcin after being clocked at 215 kilometres per hour. That case sits at the far end of the scale, but it lands in the same column that came out longest in the July count.
The drive closes on Sunday, August 2. As with the ones before it, the Traffic Police Directorate will publish its figures once it is over.
