BRATISLAVA, February 22, (WEBNOVINY) – Among the goals of the police for 2011, presented by Police President Jaroslav Spisiak, is to have five thousand fewer accidents on Slovak roads than in 2010. “I have the ambition to seek favor of the citizens, by informing them on the goals the police want to achieve, in advance,” explained Spisiak at a news conference on Tuesday. He does not want to follow a tactics from the past, when goals were, according to him, set in advance, but later only the positive achievements were presented. No one mentioned what was not fulfilled or in which fields the police had problems. If the overall goals set will not be fulfilled, Spisiak pledges to resign. He however admitted, that some indicators do not need to be fulfilled at hundred percent, but the result has to be [fulfilled] in general, so some other goals would have to be exceeded.
According to Spisiak, the police should primarily protect lives, secondarily health and only then the property. Yet this is often done concurrently. Most important among the planned goals for 2011 will be those in the field of road traffic. Spisiak said that the main reason for this is the fact that 345 people died on Slovak roads in the last year. This year, number of accidents should drop by 23.15 percent. “We have calculated that if we reduce the number of accidents by 5,000, we also will reduce the number of the dead and wounded so, that we will fulfill the European commitments,” Spisiak added. Last year, 21,595 traffic accidents happened on Slovak roads, the police would like to squeeze the number under 16,595 this year. Fulfilling the goals in road traffic has 20-percent weight in overall goals fulfillment, followed by the goals in violent and moral offenses representing 18 percent.
Compared to the first two months of 2010, road safety in Slovakia has improved. “The number of traffic accidents in 2010 […] was a new record low, almost extraordinary. Our results are even better than this record,” continued Spisiak. Since the beginning of 2011, 2,209 traffic accidents were recorded, which is 880 fewer than in the same period of 2010. Thirty-eight people died in 2011, ten less than a year ago. The number of heavily wounded dropped from 168 to 97 and the number of people with light injuries from 796 to 682. “I think this is an illustration of the right intention to manage the police force in a way involving responsibility of each policeman for the police work,” enclosed Spisiak.
SITA