In Irkutsk, authorities plan to tighten control over minibus drivers after numerous complaints from residents and a fatal crash on March 2. The city road safety commission decided to ask the regional administration to toughen penalties, including more active license revocations for violations. The traffic police note that it is easier to work with large carriers, but much harder with small ones.
On the eve of the meeting of the city road safety commission, Irkutsk Deputy Mayor Nikolai Khitsenko stated that minibus drivers would be monitored even more strictly. The reason for this was the constant complaints from Irkutsk residents about the drivers, as well as the latest accident on March 2 involving a route bus, when a girl died on Dzerzhinsky Street.At the commission meeting, it was decided to send a letter to the regional administration requesting stricter legal penalties for minibus drivers. Revoking a driver’s license to carry passengers is an effective measure to combat violations, but it is by no means always applied. In 2008, there were more than 1,700 accidents involving minibuses, resulting in five deaths. In more than half of these accidents, the minibus drivers were at fault, but many of them were never stripped of their licenses.
At the beginning of 2009, 2,885 license cards had been issued in the regional center for both large and small route buses.
According to traffic police officers, it is possible to find common ground with large carriers: they comply with most of the requirements for ensuring passenger safety. But with the smaller ones, things are much more difficult, and establishing contact with them is quite problematic.