- If you go on probation, you correct your behavior
- Chaos between institutions reflects in chaos on the roads
- Enough campaign shares
Why do so many people get behind the wheel after drinking a significant amount of alcohol or after using drugs?
When drivers use drugs, it is an act of irresponsibility. And it is both a personal manifestation and a function of public sanction. There are people who seek the adventurous and the challenging.
There are other types of leaders who overestimate or dull their focus for various reasons.
In this case, we observe a low level of respect for the public sanction. The truth is that the last year – a year and a half
very much like the times of the 90s
Then there were also insane statistics on serious accidents.
But there are other reasons for this – traffic regulation is very poor, control is not serious, sanctions and rule-making are not adequate and are not adequately applied. For the past year and a half, for example, our roads have remained neglected and unmaintained. A public one was created
an attitude of weak sense of statehood
in people. This feeling led to the feeling of nervousness, of division, of aggression, of hatred.
People are very nervous and angry and this affects their behavior on the road.
This also reflects on the behavior of foreign leaders on our territory – just as Bulgarians, when they go to Germany, start to conform to the behavior of local leaders, foreigners also conform to the behavior of ours.
When legal norms are introduced, their effect must be seen. Everyone talks about the introduction of rules and the lack of laws, but no one pays attention when rules are introduced, what is their effect.
Years ago, an amendment was made to the Road Traffic Act, whereby
penalties for drivers were drastically increased,
used alcohol and drugs.
Now, when we all see these serious accidents, we get outraged and go into a lumpen passion for increased penalties. And this takes us back to other times and periods when people were much more primitive in their social development. Criminal registrations were also introduced for drivers, without necessarily taking into account suspended sentences. And the cases with drivers caught with less than 1.2 parts per million of alcohol are not looked at at all.
And we see what the effect is 5 years after the introduction of this norm – zero. Because all over the world, people have long been aware that the most important effect, meaning and spirit of laws is to create conditions for people to correct themselves. This is especially true when the international and domestic situation is very nervous.
But this does not happen with a suspended sentence, i.e. only with the threat of great punishment.
A sanction works when it is timely and unavoidable
Therefore, the first important rule is that the offender be punished immediately.
People long ago invented the institution of probation. If someone is caught with a higher dose of alcohol or drugs, let them go under surveillance. If it is his first time, he should be given a chance for correction, and this is done through probation. If we abstract from the drastic offenders, in many cases these drivers have done nothing or have different life explanations.
The sanction may be to work as an emergency room orderly
Or to perform forced labor. Or go to group psychotherapy.
That is, to be monitored by a probation inspector and after some time he will decide whether there is progress and awareness of the acts.
And what is a suspended sentence? A convicted person can live for three years without any supervision and no one asks him to correct his behavior. As it turns out, this doesn’t stop people with a relapse mindset – they will continue to drive and sow death.
The legal norm does not work, but this is not taken into account. The former interior minister’s campaign actions were ad hoc actions. No one asked Boyko Rashkov in the “Semerjiev” case how a month before the event the person in question was “released” by the authorities – he escaped from custody. This is considered a serious accident and an investigation is immediately initiated. And no check was done for a whole month.
The tone of institutional intolerance, which was set in recent years by the deep conflicts between the prosecution and the executive power, between the National Assembly and the presidency – all this has also affected the way the institutions themselves function. We have a mental and institutional chaos that reflects on the behavior of drivers on the road and in human casualties.
That is why the request of the new interior minister to stop campaigning in control is good. Control officers just have to do their job.
If we know that there are 6 cameras on a road section that are always working, out of 100 people only 1 will allow themselves to exceed the speed limit. And when it’s a campaign, one day there may be police at that section, the next day there may not be. Then most likely out of 100 people at least half will break the speed limit. A reliable and timely sanction does much more work. It’s much better to know there are cameras there.
The principle also applies to all actions of the institutions – permanent, reliable and secure control. This will affect people’s behavior. It is not just a matter of individual discipline.
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