Road traffic safety

Around 1,800 people have died over the past year, between the death of popular singer Pantelis Pantelidis in February 2016 and Sunday's tragic accident in which four people were killed on the Athens-Lamia national highway, road safety expert Tassos Markouizos told Skai on Tuesday.

Bulgaria and Romania had the weakest road safety records among EU member states last year, according to official statistics of the bloc.

While all the EU member states have improved their road safety records since 2010, there was still a significant gap in their performance, the European Commission said in a statement on Thursday.

Bulgaria and Romania have the highest annual road fatality rates among all 28 EU member states, with 95 dead each for every million people, well above the EU average of 51.5 per million, the European Commission road safety report for 2015, released on Thursday, said.

Samsung has dubbed its new trucks generation as “Safety Trucks”. The company advertises them as the first “see-through” trucks which allow drivers following behind them to be able to see oncoming traffic and thus make the correct call on whether or not to pass them on the road.

Drunk driver caught with 5.5 per mil blood alcohol

BELGRADE -- A drunk driver in Uzice, western Serbia, has had his license revoked and was ordered to pay RSD 150,000 after causing a traffic accident.

The man crashed into a parked car and then fell asleep. The police determined that his blood alcohol content was 5.5 milligrams per milliliter.

Three people were killed and one injured in three road accidents that occurred in a 45-minute spell on the same stretch of the Thiva-Livadia national road on Thursday night.

Two men, aged 42 and 61, were killed when a truck collided with a tractor.

A crowd gathered at the spot and the third man was killed when he tried to cross the road and was hit by a passing car.

The number of traffic accidents in Greece that caused death or injury rose by 1.3 percent in August this year compared to the same month in 2013, figures released by the Hellenic Statistical Authority (ELSTAT) on Friday have shown.

In numbers, 1,059 crashes were reported in the last month of the summer this year, up from 1,045 last year.

Road safety campaigners held a protest on Wednesday at the spot on Petrou Ralli Street where three people were run over and killed last week.

A group called SOSTE organized the event.

It demanded that speed limits in Athens be brought down to 30 km per hour.

Attica Governor Rena Dourou lent her support and said that road safety must become a policy priority.

Campaign launched to increase use of seat belts

BELGRADE -- The police in Serbia have stepped up checks and are fining drivers whose passengers traveling in the rear seat are found not to be using a seat belt.

Director of the Traffic Safety Agency Krsto Lipovac told the RTS broadcaster that a campaign to this end will be ongoing during the next week.

"Serbia loses 4 percent of GDP through traffic accidents"

BELGRADE -- Serbia annually loses nearly four percent of its GDP due to damages caused by traffic accidents, said Serbian Deputy Prime Minister Zorana Mihajlović.

She also serves as minister of construction, transport and infrastructure.