Granskning av Aleksinac kommuns övergångsställen

Sammanfattning: Through its new road safety program the Aleksinac municipality wants to achieve a higher degree of safety in the city than today. These include a safer environment for vulnerable road users. For many years the municipality has neglected pedestrians, consciously or unconsciously, by not investing enough resources and money to improve their situation in traffic. The municipality now wants to correct this and prioritize the pedestrians through a number of actions. One of the most important parts is to review all the meeting points between the vulnerable road users and motor vehicles. The work includes examining twelve crossing points and suggesting various measures that can contribute to greater accessibility and greater safety for pedestrians. Motor vehicles driven with high speed, insufficient respect and interaction between pedestrians and motor drivers are some of the factors responsible for these accidents. The goal is to secure speed at these crossings in order to reduce the number of pedestrian accidents at these points of conflict. All the reviewed crossings were constructed many years ago and since then very little has been done to improve their condition. The municipality has maintained these crossings by repainting them or replacing the street signs that was in poor condition. The new Traffic Act about making it obligatory for drivers to give way to pedestrians at uncontrolled crossings which came into force on 10 December 2009 will be a great help in future road safety planning. There are indications of positive impact since the number of road accidents started to decrease but it is still too early to say anything about its effect over a longer time. The fact that the number of traffic fatalities and injuries has declined is however being partly due to that we have also traveled less with the car because of the recession and the crisis with fewer accidents as a result. Of course it is not sufficient to change the traffic rules or to sentence higher and more severe punishment for improving road user behavior and hence reduce road accidents. Accidents happen and we all have to cooperate to prevent as many as possible. Our own and other people's safety must not be jeopardized because bad behavior in traffic. In order to provide better accessibility for pedestrians and at the same time guarantee their safety when crossing intersections traffic calming measures such as speed cushions, raised pedestrian crossings, curb extensions and signal regulating must be used wherever necessary. Traffic calming measures are tools that have positive results when it comes to reducing the speed of motor vehicles and thereby reducing pedestrian’s risk of being seriously injured at a crossing point. Surrounding environment, type of pedestrians and motor vehicles are variables that guided the choice regarding what action is best suited for at each specific case. This action at pedestrian crossings is very likely to influence road user behavior in a positive direction. The audit of municipality´s crossings will hopefully show their status today and what solutions should be applied to improve the traffic situation for the pedestrians.