Lucian Bode has officially announced a series of very important changes for the Romanian Highway Code, changes that have been requested for a very long time, and which bring much tougher sanctions for violating the regulations that are imposed by Romanian legislation now.
Lucian Bode explains below why it was necessary to implement these changes for the road legislation, and in the press conference above you can also see in detail the very important changes that were made, and which drivers driving through Romania must know about at the time of face.
"Hello, I found you well. We adopted in today's executive meeting the Government Ordinance for the amendment and completion of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 195/2002, regarding traffic on public roads. I want to state from the beginning that the purpose of road legislation is primarily to protect the life, integrity and health of people who participate in road traffic or are close to it.
This normative act is the result of in-depth consultations and debates with all those interested in increasing the safety level of road traffic and traffic participants. The aforementioned road legislation, I believe, has the greatest interest from the public every time changes and additions are made to it, so it is important to clarify a few aspects.
One, the objective of increasing road safety, assumed by Romania through the PNRR, in the reform chapter, of reducing the number of victims, seriously injured people and deaths, of road accidents by 25% compared to the 2019 reference level, the assumed deadline being 2026.
And two, all road safety is a serious problem in Romania, its level being significantly lower than the average recorded in the member states of the European Union. And let me give you some numbers. In 2021, there was a decrease in the number of serious accidents by almost 22% and the number of seriously injured people by almost 31%, compared to 2020, while the number of people who died in road accidents increased by 8%, more precisely we reached 1.778 of deaths in road accidents in 2021.
As regards both the detected contraventions and the criminality reported in relation to the traffic regime on public roads, a worrying upward trend is noted. Thus, the current traffic behavior of some traffic participants has required a reevaluation of the legal framework and new mechanisms for sanctioning violations based on their degree of social danger."
