Road accidents killed 14,000 Russians in 2012

Road accidents killed 14,000 Russians in 2012

Moscow -  Around 14,000 people have died in traffic accidents in Russia since the beginning of the year, police statistics show.

More than 107,000 road accidents resulting in deaths and injuries were registered in Russia in January-July 2012. The country has a population of around 142 million.

Over 13,800 people died in those accidents -- a three-percent increase year-on-year -- and 137,700 have been injured, seven percent more than in 2011.

Last year, 28,000 people died in almost 200,000 traffic accidents.

In the US, home to 314 million people, more than 30,000 people die in road accidents every year.

Most of the accidents registered in Russia over the past seven month have occurred because of drivers violating traffic rules, including speeding, crossing over into the opposite lane and  ignoring red lights, the statistics show.

Such violations claimed the lives of 12,150 since January and left some 125,600 people injured.

The poor state of roads has been the second major and increasingly frequent cause of accidents. Some 24,600 such accidents were registered in Russia over the past seven months - an  8.7-percent rise year-on-year.

Poor road maintenance resulted in 3,900 traffic-related deaths in January-July, 16.5 percent more that in the same period last year, and left some 32,000 people injured, a 10.7-percent  increase.

Drunk drivers killed more than 1,000 people and injured more than 9,850 in 6,700 accidents since January, but the toll from such accidents has decreased by some 12 percent year-on-year.

In 2010, then president Dmitry Medvedev signed a bill enforcing a zero alcohol limit for drivers. The legislation prohibited drivers from getting behind the wheel with any amount of alcohol in  their blood.

Drunk drivers in Russia face suspension of their license for a period of between 18 to 36 months.