From January to April, 150 accidents involving children occurred in St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region. In both regions, child injury rates are higher this year than last year. A total of 168 children were injured in road accidents, and seven more died.
In St. Petersburg, in the first four months of 2023, 106 accidents with children were recorded, said Dmitry Zastavsky, senior inspector of the UGIBDD for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region, at a press conference at Interfax on May 22. This is 16 cases more than in the same period in 2022. 115 children were injured, 21 children more than a year earlier. Fortunately, there were no deaths. A year ago, during the same period, one child died in an accident. The most emergency areas were Nevsky and Vyborgsky, there were 13 and 12 accidents with minors, respectively. And the largest increase in accidents was noted in Kurortny and Vyborgsky districts – by 400% (from 1 to 5 accidents) and 140% (from 5 to 12 accidents).
More than half of the cases (56) are pedestrian collisions, another 35 are vehicle collisions. In third place (4 cases each) are collisions with cyclists and falls of passengers in vehicles. Accordingly, the majority of affected children are pedestrians (60 people) or passengers (52 children). Three were injured while riding bicycles.
The vast majority of road accidents involving children occurred due to the fault of drivers, although there was also an increase in the number of accidents due to minors’ own negligence. There were 83 first cases in 4 months, 23 second ones (three cases more than a year ago), and 20 of them were accidents with pedestrians, and one was a collision with a cyclist. Two more occurred in public transport. In cases with child passengers, responsibility for a greater number of accidents lies with unauthorized drivers (59.6%), although traffic rules are violated not much less often with children in the cabin (40.4% of accidents).
In the Leningrad region in January-April, 44 road accidents involving children were recorded, in which 53 children were injured and seven died. A year earlier, there were no dead children in the region in an accident during the same period. Here, the majority of accidents with children, unlike in St. Petersburg, are collisions of vehicles (17 cases), and collisions with pedestrians (13 accidents) turned out to be a little more rare. In 4 cases, there were traffic exits from the road and a collision with a standing car, three more each – collisions with cyclists and an obstacle. Also in the region, compared to last year, there were fewer accidents that occurred due to the children’s own negligence – three cases against six.
