Road Safety in Romania
The ʺe-SIGURʺ system of fixed speed cameras is operational on Romanian roads
Roxana Vasile, 09.01.2025, 13:50
The number of deaths in road accidents decreased slightly in 2023, compared to 2022. However, Romania continues to account for many victims on the roads. According to data from the Road Safety Bulletin drawn up by the Romanian Police, 1,500 people lost their lives in 2023, most of them pedestrians. Also, approximately 3,500 people were seriously injured. Most of the approximately 4,500 serious road accidents occurred in rural areas. In more than half of the cases, the fault was the drivers’, the most frequent causes of serious road accidents being the failure to adapt the speed to the road conditions, but also the cyclists’ violations of road safety rules.
In other words, the irregular movement of pedestrians and the excessive speed of motorists are the two most frequent causes of serious road accidents in Romania. In order to reduce their number, the Traffic Police has already started to monitor traffic through a new surveillance system – ʺe-SIGURʺ (e-SAFE). For now, the system has been rendered operational only on the A1 Bucharest-Pitesti and A2 Bucharest-Constanța highways, as well as on DN2 – E85, in Vrancea county (east), and it uses gun-type radar devices, with video camera, mounted on a tripod, visible on roadsides. The recordings are analyzed by the police, and if a violation of the traffic law is found, then the driver will receive the fine at home, by mail, so there’s no need to stop them in traffic.
And a piece of warning: the increase in the gross minimum wage at national level also determined the increase in the fine point, so that fines start from 405 lei (about 80 euros) but can reach over 20,000 lei (the equivalent of about 4 thousand euros)! Another important thing to know is that, by law, the application of sanctions is done gradually, so, based on the checks made in the database, a driver who has not been sanctioned before can only receive a warning, while another can be sanctioned harsher.
The operation of the ʺe-SIGURʺ system will not be limited to the two highways and one national road mentioned above. The police announced that more fixed radars will be gradually set up on dozens of roads in high risk areas throughout the country. According to the law establishing ʺe-SIGURʺ, the goal for 2030 is to reduce by 50% the number of people dying in road accidents, as compared to 2019, and also by 50% the number of people seriously injured in road accidents. (MI)
