Weather and Solar Eclipse Kill 600 on Russian Roads in One Week

Almost 600 people were reported to have been killed in car accidents in Russia from July 20 to 26. Road Police officers called this period a black week. The week began with the accident in the Novosibirsk region, where a tourist bus failed to negotiate the corner. Eight passengers were killed and 37 hospitalized as a result of the accident. On July 24, in the Rostov region a tanker vehicle went into ongoing traffic and collided head-on with a shuttle bus. The collision was so powerful that 21 passenger of 29 died on the scene. This very day in the Altai region a rector of a village church and his sons died in a road accident.

Photo: Weather and Solar Eclipse Kill 600 on Russian Roads in One Week

The next day in the Moscow region a van driver fell asleep while driving and rammed into a bus at the moment when passengers were getting off at a stop at Moscow’s Ring Road. Twelve people were hospitalized with serious injuries.

The Sunday night brought new victims. A 26-years-old man driving an old Lada car ran into a Honda Mobilio minivan in the Krasnodar region. Eight people died in the accident.

Several hours later one more accident occurred in the same region. A car collided with a shuttle bus. Two people were killed.

The previous week was called black as 592 people died in 4,505 road accidents from July 20 to 26. For instance, for the first six months of this year 10,277 people fell victims of the accidents - that is 392 people a week.

Psychiatrists consider that the reason for the outburst is unfavorable weather conditions and solar eclipse. The natural phenomena may affect the vegetovascular system and the psycho-emotional condition of the drivers.

However, scientists reject this version. Having made investigations, they found no connection between solar eclipse and health decline.

The Russian Emergency Minister Sergey Shoygu made a disappointing calculation for road-users: according to his data, the number of road accidents increases by 18 percent with the warm weather coming. The explanation for this is the appearance of bicyclists and motor-cyclist on the roads.

An official for the Russian Traffic Safety Department claims that the reason for such a large amount of road accidents is negligence about traffic rules.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev commented the situation with traffic safety in Russia.

“I think such horrifying situations occur not only because of the dismal quality of roads, this quality is part of the problem, indeed, and yet the greater part is the laxity of control on the road and a criminal lack of discipline among drivers,” Medvedev said.

“The Road Police and other agencies should have done everything in their power to bring the situation on the roads into order. It’s just unimaginable that so many people should be buried at one time just because control over traffic safety is so poorly organized here,” the president added.

According to official statistics, up to 100 people die on Russian roads every day. Nearly 2,000 road accidents occurred over the recent weekend in Russia, in which 306 people, including 11 children, died.

For the first six months of the year 10,277 people, including 341 children, died and 106,392 were injured in 84,365 accidents.

Komsomolskaya Pravda