Drivers who have money, power rarely get punished for reckless driving that kills people.
While the flu epidemic stirred panic by claiming more than 400 lives this autumn alone, the roads are much deadlier places in Ukraine. While influenza can be expected to kill 6,000 people in a typical year, the carnage on the highways claimed nearly 10,000 lives in 2007 alone.
And reckless driving habits of powerful citizens – many of whom never face justice in courts – are contributing to the high death toll. Yet, thus far, the loss of life and injustice on the dangerous roads hasn’t triggered massive public outrage.
“It might sound cynical, but we are used to such things and people feel they have lots of other problems,” said pollster Yevhen Kopatko, who founded the Research & Branding polling firm. Tragic auto accidents are accepted as “only one of the many stresses felt by our society.”
It’s too bad, say activists, who believe many of these deaths are preventable through better road safety enforcement and tougher fines on violators. Higher traffic fines were introduced last year, but they are still low and – as any pedestrian knows – enforcement is lacking.
The upshot is that the country’s roads still rank among the most dangerous in Europe, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Last year, the death rate was 961 people per million cars, just above Russia and more than triple rates seen in neighboring Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.
Many lives could be saved if drivers and passengers wore seat belts, a protective measure rarely used or enforced in Ukraine. More lives could be saved by punishing rich citizens, who are notorious for racing their luxury cars and evading justice by paying bribes.
In Ukraine, the human factor – namely risky driving habits – are the number one cause of deaths, according to recent research Kopatko’s firm conducted thanks to backing from UniWorld, a Kyiv-based charity run by politician-businessman Eduard Prutink, along with the Ukrainian Road Safety Association. The group says that road accidents are the leading cause of death for Ukrainians aged 10-24.
Why do so many people put their lives – and the lives of others — at risk by driving so fast? And why do traffic police allow it? Because they can get away with it, experts said. According to lawyers, weak punishment and corruption are yet another aspect of the nation’s lawless culture.
“If drivers get away scot-free over and over, they will never drive according to the written rules,” said Roman Marchenko, senior partner at Ilyashov & Partners. “Such a system lets people know that they can commit it again and again, without punishment.”
On the books, Ukra?ne’s laws punish reckless drivers strictly. Drivers who kill or severely injure another person can face up to eight years in prison. Many average citizens do, in fact, face such penalties. But lawyers questioned by the Kyiv Post said they could not remember a single case when a famous or VIP driver was jailed.
“One can see that investigations of cases [involving rich citizens] are put on the back burner and punishment set is usually symbolic, far from inadequate,” said Serhiy Budnik, deputy head of the State Automobile Inspection, Ukraine’s roadway police better known by its DAI acronym.
“We are very worried about these cases [where rich and powerful drivers are involved]. There have been plenty of them in Odesa, Simferopol, Kharkiv and Zaporizhya. But unfortunately, the courts “know’ better,” Budnik said, referring to cases that are often dropped by unruly and possibly corrupt court decisions.
The family of 25-year-old Aliya Askarova, who died from injuries in a road accident last summer, knows what it’s like to fight in court against a driver who has power and influence. The accident that killed Askarova was caused by Olena Honchar, who has family ties to President Victor Yushchenko. Her brother used to be married to Yushchenko’s daughter, Vitalina.
The late woman’s father, Rif Askarov, demanded maximum punishment against Olena Honchar, who was allegedly driving drunk and on the wrong side of the road on Dniprovsky Uzviz in Kyiv on July 30. She crashed into a Tavria, a tiny Ukrainian-made economy car where Askarova was a passenger.
Askarov turned to the Kyiv Post for help when he started fearing that Kyiv’s Pechersk district court might not give them a fair trial. The case is currently being heard and a decision could come soon. But Askarov said he started doubting the trial’s fairness after Honchar’s lawyer offered him $10,000 in compensation settlement, in his words also warning that the money would be used elsewhere “to solve the problem another way.”
“Now we doubt that the court hearing will be objective,” Askarov said.
Mykhailo Honchar, Olena’s brother, told the Kyiv Post such accusations are “nonsense,” and denied plans to bribe the court. He said he merely proposed settlement to the family, but they refused to take the money, thinking they can get more. “They thought we are millionaires,” Honchar added.
Honchar insists his sister is innocent, and that the Tavria’s driver caused the accident. He said Askarova died because she left the hospital, contrary to doctor’s recommendations.
Honchar said his sister’s blood test showed a small volume of alcohol equivalent of “only two glasses of wine.” But Ukraine has a near-zero tolerance level cut off for drinking alcohol behind the wheel.
Under Ukrainian legislation, the person who caused severe injuries or death in a road accident can be forced to pay compensation for moral and material damage to the affected party, and could also serve a jail term as punishment. In practice, however, lawyers said jail sentences are nearly always forgotten about when the accused is a rich or powerful driver.
Sometimes criminal cases are simply closed.
“Documents and results of examinations are forged to portray it as both sides’ fault, said Marchenko, the lawyer from Ilyashev & Partners. “For example, often the strategy is to show that the pedestrian crossed the road in an inappropriate place. The main problem here, however, is not Ukrainian legislation. It’s a problem with the people who use these laws. It’s a question of corruption, foremost amongst judges and prosecutors.”
Suspended sentences are also very common, which effectively allows escaping responsibility, according to Marchenko.
The most recent case of a suspended sentence for causing a road accident is that of 25-year-old Vitaliy Faingold, the son of Simferopol City Council deputy Yosyp Faingold, who is also one of the richest people on the Crimea peninsula.
On Nov. 6, a judge handed Faingold a two-year suspended sentence for killing a 25-year-old female biker in Simferopol after his Bentley struck her while traveling at 171 kilometers per hour. The official speed limit in the city is 60 kilometers per hour. Faingold paid Hr 500,000 to the 5-year-old daughter of his victim, and another Hr 125,000 to the victim’s father.
In the last few years, many of the nation’s leaders and their relatives have been in the news for causing accidents with injuries or deaths. Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky and his wife, for example, were accused of two fatal accidents in 2003, but investigations went nowhere.
Serhiy Kalynovsky, the stepson of Ukrainian millionaire Dmytro Firtash, caused the deaths of two people in a crash that occurred in downtown Kyiv in 2007. But he evaded justice by fleeing, allegedly to Israel. In September of last year, the case was first dismissed and then reopened, according to the Kyiv city prosecutor’s office.
Kseniya Martynova, the 19-year-old daughter of billionaire Oleksiy Martynov, a member of Ukraine’s Privat business group, caused the death of a 62-year-old pensioner on Oct. 11 in Dnipropetrovsk, according to several media reports. The criminal investigation is ongoing.
Kathleen Elsig, regional manager for Europe and Central Asia at Global Road Safety Partnership, a think tank, said the elite in any society should serve as “role models,” or at least be treated equally in the eyes of the law. “If people belong to the higher social level, they should consider that higher moral standard and act respectively,” she said.
But in Ukraine, the elite appear to treat the country’s roads and laws as a personal playground for their luxury automobiles, where the rules apply to everyone but them.
SOME RECENT VIP ROAD ACCIDENTS
The list of reckless and deadly drivers who are rich businessmen, politicians, diplomats, representatives of state authorities or their sons, daughters and relatives, is growing. Here are some of them:
On Nov. 14 in Odesa, a fast-moving Toyota killed a woman in the crosswalk. City road police, as usual, didn’t disclose driver’s name. Sources told Segodnya newspaper that it was an ex-colonel of the State Security Service.
On Oct. 11 in Dnipropetrovsk, a driver of an orange Infinity struck and fatally injured 62-year-old Lyubov Temna. Dniepr Vecherniy [Dnipropetrovsk daily] newspaper on Oct. 23 identified the driver as Kseniya Martynova, 19-year-old daughter of Oleksiy Martynov, a wealthy businessman.
On Oct. 8 in Donetsk Oblast, the mayor of Dimitrov, Yuriy Anisimov, struck Iryna Tymoshenko, an employee of the local mine. Anisimov was set free on bail of Hr 20,000.
On Sept. 16 in the Solomyanskiy district of Kyiv, a Subaru Legacy struck 20-year-old student Ruslan Lukashevych in the crosswalk. The son of Verkhovna Rada vice speaker Mykola Tomenko
On Jun. 11 in the Odesa Oblast town of Kotovsk, the head of the town’s road police struck an 18-year-old student in the crosswalk. She died of injuries several days later.
On Oct. 31 in Kharkiv, a 17-year-old Dmytro Karatumanov, son of Oleh Karatumanov, a Party of Regions parliamentarian, struck and killed a 19-year-old student. The driver fld the scene but was acquitted.
Felix Petrosyan, a law student in Odesa and the son of an influential local politician, on Jan. 12, 2008 smashed his Toyota into 11 cars, killing one person and sending five others to the hospital. An inebriated Petrosyan reportedly told police: “Papa will take care of everything.” He also was acquitted, but the prosecutor appealed the verdict to the Supreme Court.
On May 30, 2007, in Kyiv the stepson of oligarch and millionaire Dmytro Firtash, Serhiy Kalynovsky, rammed his BMW into another car, killing two passengers, in the center of Kyiv. The criminal case was dismissed.
Cars of Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky have been linked to two deadly accidents. On April 15, 2003, Chernovetsky’s wife, Alina, was a passenger in a Mercedes registered to Pravex Bank that struck and fatally injured a 10-year-old boy near the couple’s home in Koncha Zaspa. On Nov. 2 of that year, Chernovetsky was suspected of being behind the wheel of a Mercedes that struck and killed a pedestrian on the same stretch of road. No charges were filed.
