By Dušan Ković, Mechanical Engineer
The ease with which lives are lost in traffic accidents on Serbian roads is incomprehensible. We witness entire families being wiped out because of someone’s reckless driving and outrageously arrogant and inconsiderate behaviour behind the wheel, completely devoid of even the slightest respect for traffic regulations.
As is our usual custom, after such incidents we are mostly horrified, often cross ourselves, but draw very few conclusions and react even less in order to ensure that such tragedies never happen again. It is as though these are problems involving cosmic forces beyond our control, rather than earthly issues and events that have long since been overcome in societies even somewhat more stable than ours.
The state of traffic on Serbian roads could quite easily be described in short and simple terms as – neglected! Surely by now we have “worked out” that we must confront the devastating statistics concerning fatalities, injuries, and the overall damage caused by traffic accidents as soon as possible, otherwise our roads will resemble the scenes of sabotage operations rather than ordinary highways.
Roads are missing the traffic police – and when the cat’s away, the mice will play
Traffic police have always been the guarantors of respect for and enforcement of traffic regulations. Yet, judging by the situation over the past several years, traffic police patrols have become so rare on the roads that it often seems as though they no longer exist. Even if we may not know exactly why this is the case, we certainly know that “when the cat’s away, the mice will play”.
As a result, there are increasingly more reckless drivers because they no longer fear the police – who are absent – and therefore have no fear of punishment either. If “peace” is to return to roads across Serbia, the traffic police must perform their duties regularly and diligently. Furthermore, they must act efficiently within the scope of their authority and persist long-term in their primary role – monitoring vehicles and drivers and ensuring compliance with traffic regulations.
Without this condition, no legal provision concerning road safety will achieve the desired effect, and the number of fatal accidents can only continue to “gallop” upwards year after year.
Another major problem significantly affecting road safety is driver training for operating road vehicles. The decades-old concept of “equal candidates” has long since become outdated, because it creates road users who too often believe that obtaining a driving licence category marks the end of their development as drivers. As a consequence, they never again feel the need to attain the level of skill required to safely and responsibly operate a car, bus, or lorry in traffic.
All candidates in driving schools are treated in exactly the same way: everyone takes the same tests, drives the same number of hours, under the same conditions, and receives the same amount of theoretical instruction, despite the fact that no two candidates possess the same “driving potential”. The driving instructor has only a symbolic role in the entire training process. His word or opinion about a candidate means absolutely nothing and carries no weight whatsoever.
When form matters more than substance
Everything has been designed merely to satisfy formal requirements, while the essence of the matter has been entirely neglected. Until the training process becomes flexible and adaptable to different types of candidates; until instructors are given the opportunity and authority to write reports and provide assessments of every candidate who “passes through their hands”; and until instructors themselves determine the scope and method of training, we will continue producing “unfinished” drivers, for whom nobody will ever reliably determine what they will actually be like behind the wheel or how they will behave throughout their driving careers.
The widespread and general disregard for traffic regulations – whether by cyclists, motorists, bus drivers, or pedestrians – is a story in itself. It is simply unbelievable how many road users, both mentioned and unmentioned, violate traffic rules daily without the slightest sense of guilt and without even considering whether such behaviour is truly necessary at that particular moment.
Not only is our general traffic culture shamefully poor, but so too is the individual culture of each of us when participating in traffic. We behave as though we had never attended school and as though our parents had never taught or raised us properly.
Rather than listing every example of traffic violations we witness every day, perhaps it is enough to highlight one single example – and perhaps the most important one of all: pedestrians crossing at pedestrian crossings.
Article 96 of the Road Traffic Safety Law, paragraph one, states that pedestrians may cross the road at a pedestrian crossing “after first ensuring that they can do so safely”. So why, then, do people so often step onto zebra crossings instinctively and almost suicidally, without taking even a single moment to check whether vehicles have actually stopped to give them priority?
Because that priority is not God-given – it is granted by the human beings driving the approaching vehicles! How many people have lost their lives because they carelessly stepped onto the roadway, and how many cross streets every day with such defiance and contempt towards drivers that motorists are left wondering – are you people completely mad?
An old problem for which nobody bears responsibility
And then, of course, there is the old affliction and consequence of our absolute superficiality, irresponsibility, and neglect – completely unlit and poorly marked roadworks, construction sites and structures, embankments, concrete planters, and blocks positioned right beside or directly on the road.
The lack of light signalling, road markings, and protective barriers that should clearly indicate obstacles and dangers on the road also contributes to the overall number of fatalities and injuries. And what is utterly devastating for our society as a whole is that nobody bears responsibility for all this sloppiness, negligence, and recklessness on the part of road maintenance companies. To our greatest misfortune, human life in Serbia is all too often the cheapest “commodity”.
Penalties for many traffic offences are either not issued at all or are easily “erased”. Even when the law is applied, offenders can reduce the amount of the fine by as much as 50 per cent simply by paying promptly. How this commercial-style approach to paying fines contributes to improving road safety in our country remains unclear to this day, because it obviously has little meaningful impact on either the psychology of offenders or other road users.
How many of us have ever actually used the first-aid kit that every driver is required to keep in their car? Would it perhaps be more useful if every vehicle had a dashboard camera mounted on the windscreen to record traffic and surroundings? Of course, one should not replace the other, nor would that be possible, but it is certainly true that many traffic incidents could be clarified far more easily if such cameras were mandatory equipment in vehicles – especially in accidents involving fatalities.
It is equally certain that many fabricated statements and false testimonies would disappear from the outset if road users knew in advance that video footage from in-car cameras constituted mandatory evidence in compensation claims.
The recent proposals and grand announcements that penalties for certain offences will be drastically increased are yet another complete failure and proof that nobody is seriously addressing traffic and road safety problems in this country. The assumption that increasing financial penalties will improve road safety is as unrealistic as assuming that free public transport in Belgrade will solve the city’s traffic congestion problems.
On the other hand, it is astonishing that nobody has yet thought to permanently revoke driving licences from categories of people such as proven alcoholics, proven drug users, repeat perpetrators of serious traffic violations, offenders responsible for fatal accidents caused by reckless and irresponsible driving or driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics, psychologically unstable individuals such as repeat domestic abusers, long-term users of heavy medication, paedophiles, and others.
Temporary vehicle impoundment is more effective than fines
Instead of continually increasing fines – which cannot rise indefinitely – it would be far wiser to explore new solutions for restraining violent and dangerous drivers. One such measure could be compulsory vehicle impoundment for a specific period, depending on the type and severity of the offence committed using that vehicle.
This is because, among us Serbs, a car is far more of a “family member” than merely a means of transport. Accordingly, it would probably be a far greater punishment if someone with a “heavy foot on the accelerator”, in addition to the standard fine (with its 50 per cent discount) and penalty points, also had to surrender their vehicle for several weeks or months under threat of permanent confiscation.
Fit an “electronic tag” to the steering wheel, and impose five days of compulsory vehicle impoundment for every penalty point earned, and reckless passions would quickly subside. Admittedly, it has long since been time for traffic police patrols to move from handwritten offence reports to using tablet devices. With just a few taps on a screen and one or two photographs from the scene, both the Serbian Ministry of the Interior and the e-Government system could be instantly informed of the offence. This would drastically improve police efficiency while sharply reducing the number of offenders.
Yet what remains especially unclear is one unanswered question – why do the traffic police not establish open cooperation with citizens in jointly raising road safety to a higher and generally acceptable level?
Why have the traffic police remained on one side and citizens on the other when we all live in the same country and face the same problem together? Nowadays, every one of us has a mobile phone. Is it really so difficult and complicated to establish communication channels through which citizens could send photographs and videos of traffic offenders whom they themselves record in towns and streets across the country? Is there any faster, better, or cheaper way than this to bring some order to our roads and stop losing lives needlessly?
Finally, judging by the catastrophic results of official traffic safety statistics, serious consideration should be given to introducing periodic psychological testing as well as testing drivers for the presence of chemical substances in their blood.
Because daily exposure to stress – which in our lives is no longer occasional or temporary, but intense and permanent – certainly does not leave us as stable as we imagine ourselves to be. For this reason, many people attempt to relieve themselves and shield themselves from stress through alcohol or narcotics. The illusion through which they later perceive themselves is, in many cases, the principal trigger for causing traffic accidents.
(Radar. 13.05.2026)
https://radar.nova.rs/drustvo/saobracajne-nesrece-porast-radar-dk/