Penza, 1 January 2013. PenzaNews. The Penza region has moved into red zone of the road safety rating for the 11 months of 2012, receiving 3,0137 points. In 2011, the region was ranked 9th being in green zone.

According to the experts of inter-regional social center “For safety of Russian roads” from January to November 2012 in the Penza region, where live 1,386,000 people, there were 2,066 car accidents, in which 254 people were killed, and 2, 528 people received injuries of varying severity.

The Novosibirsk and Belgorod regions, Republic of Udmurtia, the Saratov region and the Republic of Bashkortostan occupy the first five positions of the rating with combined figures of 1,7617 to 2,0623 points.

Outsiders of the rating are Ivanovo, Penza, Tyumen regions, St. Petersburg with its region and Primorski Krai which got from 2,9849 to 3,6646 points.

“Analysis of the situation on Russian roads shows that the authorities cannot effectively influence the situation. 14% of all accidents are caused by pedestrians, while half as many crashes are caused by intoxicated drivers. The most serious accidents with a large number of victims are caused by drivers of buses and heavy trucks who lost control or fell asleep at the wheel,” the head of the center “For safety of Russian roads” Dmitry Leontiev told news agency “PenzaNews.”

He noted that these systematic problems cannot be solved by only restructuring of traffic or mass installation of the video cameras.