Two deadly road accidents highlight Lithuanian plight

Sep 01, 2008
TBT Staff

Lithuanian roads are the deadliest in Europe (Photo by Peter Megyeri).

Lithuania’s road death rate – which stands as the highest in Europeat nearly 22 per 100,000 people – has been a long-standing problem for the country.

“You can’t assume that everyone observes the rules. Once you’re seriously injured, the fact that someone else is at fault will do little to console you,” Lithuanian driver Martynas Gircys told The Baltic Times earlier this year.

Sunday’s deadly accidents took place within hours of each other.

In the first crash, a Polish citizen was thrown from a motorcycle at about 5:30 p.m. in the Salcininkai district. The man, who was reportedly driving a Yamaha motorcycle, brushed the back side of a VW Passat and went flying off the bike and onto the road. He died in the hospital shortly after.

The second accident took place at about 9:40 p.m. in the Kalvarija district of the country. A Latvian citizen was driving along the Kaunas- Marijampole – Suvalkai road near the Polish border when an elderly man unexpectedly stepped out in front of his car. The Latvian man, who was driving a Volvo FH12 with a semi-trailer, hit and fatally wounded the man.

The two deaths serve to highlight a problem that the Lithuanian police had been working hard to tackle. The police had instituted a series of new measures to help combat the problem, and it seemed a few months ago that the measures were working.

“This year more than 100 fewer people died because of the tighter penalties and confiscation of transport,” Rytis Vosylius, Chief Specialist of the Lithuanian Police Traffic Supervision Service, told TBT in July.

More than 700 Lithuanians have perished on Lithuanian roads per year for the last five years. Since 1980, yearly road deaths have numbered below 700 only seven times.

MORE NEWS