/VIDEO/ Improving road safety and warning about the places where the most accidents happen – this was the focus of the traffic conference, which took place on April 24 at the regional office in Ostrava. It discussed the ten most risky places on the roads of the Moravian-Silesian Region and localities that have already been better secured thanks to these conferences.
There are dangerous places on the roads in the Moravian-Silesian Region that drivers should pay attention to. The participants of the traffic conference dealing with the issue of road safety could learn about them.
The conference brought together transport experts, representatives of the governor’s office and municipalities. The organizers of this year’s event are RSE Project and Data Friends, the project is financed by the Loss Prevention Fund of the Czech Insurance Agency (ČKP).
Also this year, experts presented ten selected places in the Moravian-Silesian Region with a high accident rate. In general, the Moravian-Silesian Region performs well in terms of traffic accidents compared to other regions.
“The accident is not so scary. Of course, there are accident sites. The police know about them, they know about them in the municipalities, so I think there is room to open up these topics and evaluate what was and what will be,” said Ivo Muras, head of the transport department of the Moravian-Silesian Region, at the beginning of the conference.
His words were also confirmed by the BESIP coordinator for the Moravian-Silesian Region, Pavel Blahut.
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“As a region, we are doing very well. BESIP, as a body of the Ministry of Transport, has been monitoring the situation for a long time. Of course, we have a long-term strategy for the period 2021 to 2030, which is divided into short-term evaluation sections. Depending on the accident rate, we try to figure out a way to influence the accident rate. The Moravian-Silesian Region is doing well thanks to a network of high-quality communications and also because we always try to target vulnerable participants. And motorized vehicles are among the most vulnerable. There we try to focus on driver behavior,” he said.
The CEO of DataFriends Jan Chalas also gave his speakers the truth that the situation in the Moravian-Silesian region is good compared to other regions.
“The task of the Accident Portal is to draw attention to risky places on the roads, but also to evaluate data from the police, insurance companies, and other data sources available to us. So it wouldn’t be out of the question if we didn’t find some statistics in which the Moravian-Silesian Region dominates. Of course we found her. It is, for example, in the absolute number of accidents per area of the region and the length of the road network, where the Moravian-Silesian Region is at the top. The fatality rate of accidents in the Moravian-Silesian Region is gradually decreasing, however, it is being replaced by other causes of accidents, such as the way of driving, he explained.
What has already been done?
At a meeting of transport experts in Ostrava, Martin Landsfeld from the Samdi company presented a concrete solution to accident sites in the Moravian-Silesian region, which these transport conferences also helped to achieve.
“Some places that have been evaluated as risky have already been resolved, some are still being resolved and others are not yet,” he said.
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According to him, 383 risky places in the Czech Republic were presented at transport conferences between 2014 and 2023. In the past, 7,662 traffic accidents happened on them. By December 2023, measures had been implemented at 207 of these places, preparations were being made at another 135 places, and 41 places with a high accident rate were still unresolved.
As part of his presentation, the conference participants also learned about specific places where the traffic situation in the Moravian-Silesian Region has improved. These include, for example, a pedestrian crossing on the stretch of the Skotnice municipality.
Analysis of the causes of accidents
In the next part of the program, it was the turn of the ten riskiest places across the Moravian-Silesian region – selected on the basis of data and analyzes in cooperation with all interested parties. Three of them are in Opava district, three in Ostrava-město district, two in Bruntál district and one each in Nový Jičín and Frýdek-Místek districts. These are mainly intersections in cities where there is very heavy traffic.
Let’s give one example for everyone. Specifically, the roundabout in Opava on the I/11 road called Kateřinský uzel has 59 accidents and 16 injured people. There have been 35 accidents on it in the last two years, and 19 last year alone.
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“The most common cause of accidents here is failure to maintain a safe distance behind the vehicle, specifically in 39 percent of accidents. Another reason is often not paying attention to driving. The estimated damage to insurance companies is 6.5 million crowns,” explained Marek Sibal, a data analyst at DataFriends.
In the subsequent discussion, Vladimír Kovařčík responded to his words.
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“I looked at the traffic accident rate from 2019 and I have to agree that the most traffic accidents there are due to failure to maintain a safe distance. And I guess the problem was that the roundabout is quite big. I know that there was a safety inspection, there was an adjustment of the horizontal road markings. I don’t know if that helped or not. It is a relatively new intersection that was built as part of a bypass. We will see how the solution that is there at the moment helped, that is, the adjustment of the horizontal marking. It is necessary to monitor the situation,” he said.
After all, to change things for the better, that is the purpose of traffic conferences. However, this does not change the fact that especially drivers should behave responsibly and carefully on the road and concentrate as much as possible on monitoring the traffic around them.
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Top 10 risky places in the Moravian-Silesian region
1. Opava district – roundabout in Opava on road I/11 called Kateřinský uzel – 59 accidents, 16 injured – 35 accidents in the last two years – the most common cause of accidents: failure to maintain a safe distance behind the vehicle – damages according to insurance companies are almost CZK 6.5 million.
2nd district of Ostrava-město – intersection of 28. října, Mariánskohorská and Plzeňská streets near Vodárny – 45 accidents, 19 injured – 17 accidents in the last two years – the most common cause of accidents: failure to maintain a safe distance behind the vehicle – damages according to insurance companies are almost CZK 15.6 million
3rd Opava district – roundabout of Nákladní and Rybářská streets near OC Breda in Opava – 35 accidents, 13 injured – 15 accidents in the last two years – the most frequent cause of accidents: failure to give way against the Give way command – damages according to insurance companies are almost CZK 4.2 million
4th district of Ostrava-město – intersection in Opavská street at Vozovny in Ostrava-Porubá – 29 accidents, 16 injured – 10 accidents in the last two years – the most frequent cause of accidents: not giving way against the Give way command – damages according to insurance companies are almost CZK 7.2 million
5. Frýdek-Místek district – section of road II/473 between Frýdek-Místek and the village of Sedliště – 19 accidents, 6 injured – 12 accidents in the last two years – the most common cause of accidents: not the fault of the driver – damages according to insurance companies are almost CZK 3.1 million
6th district Ostrava-město – intersection of Výstavní and Zelená streets in Ostrava-Mariánské Hory – 18 accidents, 9 injured – 8 accidents in the last two years – the most frequent cause of accidents: not giving way against the Give way command – damages according to insurance companies are almost CZK 4.4 million
7. District Bruntál – section of road I/11 near the village of Malá Štáhle near Rýmařov – 14 accidents, 9 injured – 4 accidents in the last two years – the most frequent cause of accidents: failure to adapt the speed to the road condition – damages according to insurance companies are almost CZK 2.6 million
8. Bruntál district – intersection of roads I/45 and I/57 in Krnov – 13 accidents, 9 injured – 9 accidents in the last two years – the most frequent cause of accidents: not giving way against the Give way command – damages according to insurance companies are almost CZK 6.9 million
9th district of Nový Jičín – section of road I/58 at the entrance to Frenštát pod Radhoštěm from Lichnov – 12 accidents, 12 injured – 4 accidents in the last two years – the most frequent cause of accidents: failure to adapt the speed to the technical condition of the road – damages according to insurance companies are almost CZK 17.8 million
10th Opava district – intersection of Olomoucká and Vančurova streets in Opava – 11 accidents, 6 injured – 4 accidents in the last two years – the most frequent cause of accidents: failure to give way against the Give way command – damages according to insurance companies are almost 2 million CZK
Reconstruction of the intersection is a matter of millions of crowns
We talked about transport in the Moravian-Silesian Region and the issue of high-risk areas at the transport conference in Ostrava with the BESIP coordinator for the MS Region, Pavle Blahut.
Is the Moravian-Silesian Region something exceptional in terms of traffic, say in the behavior of drivers and pedestrians?
Just like we don’t deviate when it comes to some strange behavior. But considering the area of the region and the population, we basically have quite good results. It is possible that some parts of our region are not so intensively populated, for example towards Bruntálsko. On the other hand, in heavy traffic like Ostrava, that’s where the accident rate is. So we would have bad statistics regarding the number of fatal and seriously injured participants in accidents.
Is it a common phenomenon that an intersection is put into operation and then modifications are made to it, for example in the form of traffic signs?
Not even a designer can estimate how a new intersection or the reconstruction of a part will be connected to the course of the entire section. This means that there are often suggestions that the newly built intersection, which has been in service for two years, should be converted into a roundabout, for example, to bring improvements in the future. Of course detours, speeding up or pulling traffic out of town helps a lot. In any case, we ourselves have witnessed that people actually drive by memory. So the biggest problem is those traffic participants who somehow cannot accept or react quickly to a new situation. And it takes maybe two or three years to experience that situation. Therefore, planning a change after two years is rather hasty, I would even say a quick decision.
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Building a roundabout is probably more complicated than waiting for people to get used to a new intersection…
Exactly. There are, of course, support measures, signs, but even so, a person suffers from traffic blindness. Maybe we all know it ourselves, that we often drive by memory and that we don’t see all the signs. And when a section is re-marked, it also takes time for us to get used to it, because as you drive, you basically think about a lot of things. Not only is he dealing with the situation in front of him, but he is dealing with many other responsibilities in his head and he does not always manage to react perfectly.
When modifying an intersection, are modifications such as traffic signs and slow lanes always considered first?
Of course, it is the fastest solution and, to a certain extent, the most efficient in terms of financing. Rebuilding an intersection is a matter of millions, while adding road signs, possibly applying a rough coating to increase grip or some minor construction modifications, is not so financially demanding and it is mainly faster in time.
