The influx of tourists to Russian resorts due to closed borders has led to the fact that many private traders have left the roads, who work without observing the regime of work and rest, the experts interviewed by Izvestia note. On July 31, in Crimea, on the Tavrida highway, as a result of a collision between a minibus and a truck, nine people were killed. According to preliminary data, the driver of the minibus fell asleep at the wheel. The vehicle itself belongs to an individual entrepreneur from the Krasnodar Territory and was leased. For, so that such accidents in the resort areas of the country do not recur, it is necessary to strengthen control and increase fines for individual entrepreneurs, experts say.
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Mysterious carrier
Nine people were killed in an accident in the Belogorsk region of Crimea on Friday. Mercedes Sprinter with 18 passengers followed from Krasnodar to Sevastopol. At about 5 am on the Tavrida highway, a minibus crashed into a KamAZ truck with a trailer.
Seven people died from their injuries at the scene, including the minibus driver. Later, one of the victims died in an ambulance, another one in the hospital. The rest of the passengers, including two minors, were hospitalized with injuries of varying severity.
Psychologists of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Crimea are working with the relatives of the dead and injured, the ministry said in an official statement.
On the fact of the incident, two criminal cases were initiated. The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Crimea has started an investigation under Part 5 of Art. 264 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Violation of the rules of the road and the operation of vehicles, resulting in the death of two or more persons by negligence.” And the regional department of the Investigative Committee began checking under Part 3 of Art. 238 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Provision of services for the transportation of passengers that do not meet the requirements of the safety of life and health of consumers).
– The driver at the time of the accident could fall asleep – this was one of the initial versions of the causes of the accident. Others are currently being tested. There is no information about the carrier yet. It is known that the bus was rented and used for charter travel. The minibus was technically sound, – told “Izvestia” in the press service of the regional Ministry of Internal Affairs.
In the official message of the department, it is noted that the driver of the minibus did not choose a safe distance to the vehicle in front and made a collision with the truck.
The department of the Investigative Committee for the Republic of Crimea told Izvestia that the documents seized at the accident site are currently being studied. The investigation of the criminal case is under the special control of the leadership of the Central Office of the TFR.
Later, the Kuban prosecutor’s office told the media that the minibus belonged to a resident of the Anapsky district of the Krasnodar Territory. He handed it over under a lease agreement to a carrier living in the Nizhnegorsk region of Crimea.
There is no information yet on whether the passengers were wearing seat belts at the time of the accident.
However, according to the president of the expert center “Movement without Danger” Natalia Agra, seat belts in this tragedy could not save lives. According to the video of the accident, the minibus crashed into the truck at full speed and was almost destroyed.
Crimean Transport Minister Sergei Karpov said that no documents were found for the minibus route.
– The driver did not have a route map or a charter document, the official told local media. – Whether the carrier was illegal will be established based on the results of the inspection of Rostransnadzor.
According to him, the bus is registered in the Krasnodar Territory. Based on the results of the checks, the issue of the legality of such passenger transportation from Krasnodar to the peninsula will be decided.
The head of Crimea Sergey Aksenov expressed condolences to the families of the victims.
Labor without rest
The accident in Crimea makes us once again draw attention to the issue of drivers’ compliance with the work and rest regime, Natalya Agra believes.
– Besides, fines for non-compliance with security requirements for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs should be equalized, she said.
Now, under article 11.15.1 of the Administrative Code, fines for violation of transport security requirements for individual entrepreneurs are 30 thousand rubles, for legal entities – 100 thousand rubles.
The experts interviewed by Izvestia did not rule out that the passengers were indeed transported illegally.
– Due to the closed borders in the Krasnodar Territory and Crimea, there is now an unprecedented influx of tourists from other regions of Russia. Therefore, the existing transport structure cannot cope with such a flow and is forced to put up with the fact that private traders enter the routes. And the license for transportation could be obtained illegally– Sergei Kanaev, head of the National Public Center for Traffic Safety, told Izvestia.
Tatyana Rakulova, Director of the Association of Automobile and Passenger Transportation, noted that in order to obtain a license, it is necessary to have an agreement for passing a medical examination before the flight, the presence of a road safety instructor on the staff, confirmation of transport service by qualified specialists, passing a technical inspection at the vehicle parking lot. If the driver did not have route documents with him, then no one controlled him.
Since the beginning of 2020, seven accidents involving minibuses have already occurred in Russia, two of them with Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. Thus, on January 29, a minibus, a PAZ regular bus, a Reno passenger car and a Scania truck collided in the Rostov region. Two people became victims of this accident.
Two weeks later, on February 13, a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter collided with a heavy-duty Volvo car in the Pskov region. As a result, eight people died, two more were injured.