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After the accident on Tuesday morning, the Lithuanian Highway Administration, which owns the road, was criticized. The Slengiai and Ginduliai communities have been complaining since 2016, asking to install crosses here, but they are not yet waiting their turn.
Officials note other problems caused by electric or simple scooters and bicycles. It is observed that minors move without a helmet, many times without knowing the rules. Parents who provide children with these types of vehicles do not explain where or how to move.
15 minutes Mindaugas Džermeika, former head of the Klaipėda Road Police Service, spoke about the troubles and the painful disaster at the site.
– Tuesday’s disaster shocked the townspeople, everyone felt sympathy and pain, and the disaster itself reminded us that it can happen in any family. Were you on the scene, didn’t you feel depressed?
– Yes, I was at the scene myself. We worked in a nearby event, there was a “Car without a Day”, we participated in a preventive event at the University of Klaipeda, and after receiving that information we immediately went to the place. The image is horrible … I was shocked by myself, because I have a 14-year-old daughter, the whole image is still in my eyes, both the pity of the parents and the circumstances of the event. It is necessary to continue living as is. Condolences to parents … Again, we all have to draw conclusions, figure out how to continue living and participate in trafficking.
– This painful event has become a kind of lesson for everyone …
– That’s what we’re talking about. So far, we really don’t want to damage the investigation, we don’t want to show the video we got from the video recorder in the car in front, the video is attached to the pre-trial investigation material, all the circumstances are visible.
We realize that this record, the whole situation, is like a kind of educational material, how certain road users should not behave. Maybe in the future we will make it public when the preliminary investigation is finished, but seeing the image of certain participants who do not follow the rules teaches us all and the police where we should pay attention to discipline certain road users.
Aurelija Jašinskienė / 15min.lt photo / A child died in an accident in the Klaipėda district
– There was a lot of talk in public that the boy, who decided to go to school one day without a car, moved with an electric scooter without wearing a helmet. Remind them again of the age road users should use.
– The regulations specifically mention minors, persons under 18 years of age. We classify an electric scooter as a bicycle, it includes a category of bicycle, the scooters must follow what is written in the Traffic Regulations in the requirements for cyclists. We emphasize more than once and pay attention to a minor who does not wear a helmet when conducting police raids.
During the summer season, we stopped cycling as a family, mention the parents together with their children, we notice that the children do not wear helmets. We cannot punish minors, we only become a legal person after 16 years of age. We cannot impose an administrative fine until the age of 16, but we make it clear to parents that we do not take care of their children according to the Road Traffic Rules; you must use a helmet, scooter or bicycle and it does not matter which road you are on.
That rule of the road rules works imperatively: if a child goes out for public transit, wins from the backyard of the house to a street of any category, he must wear a helmet. I would like to emphasize that the Rules of the Road say that from the age of 14 you can think on the streets on your own. This means that if a younger child mines or rides a scooter, he cannot think on city streets, sidewalks or outside his residential area without his parents, even in the nearest shopping center, he cannot go alone. The responsibility of parents arises. Parents must be careful not to leave or participate in traffic on their own. It should be with the parents, think with their care.
– In this case, would a helmet have saved the child?
– I can not answer. It depends on where you get the most success. She suffered a blow to the head in that painful event. Speaking to medics at the scene, they said maybe not even a helmet would have saved him.
In this case, there is no crossing at the disaster site. There is a way out of the group of houses, marked that the side road intersects with the main one. The child possibly went to the bike path, which was on the other side of the road because it was not on the right side, it was on the left side. In this way, what the regulation mentions is that a cyclist or scooter must pause, stop, make sure it is safe, so as not to disturb other road users when crossing the road. Crossing the street by bicycle is only possible if there is a marked bicycle crossing, then you have the right not to get off, but again making sure that it is safe and that you are not riding blind.
– In the problem area, officials name the rented electric scooters. What threats do you see?
– We have a proven plan of measures to control these vehicles. I am not referring to the vehicles of a particular company. Scooters are widely used in big cities, they can be easily used in Vilnius, Kaunas and Klaipeda.
Photo by Klaipėda AVPK / Mindaugas Džermeika
We have seen problems, we have received a number of complaints that scooters that go through the trails in the old town area do not meet the safety requirements and the established speed. If you drive on a sidewalk, road traffic regulations establish a speed of 3 to 7 km / h. drink. This is a slightly higher speed than that of the pedestrians themselves. The pedestrian runs at about 5 km / h. speed. The scooter driver must be careful and ensure safety, the pedestrian has priority over the pedestrian path, therefore, the bicycle or scooter driver does not acquire the right of priority to act on the pedestrian path, he must get off, jump . For us, the police, it is quite difficult to measure speed, speed measuring devices do not allow measurement in all cases.
On Friday we raided Tiltų Street, the old town, rented a number of stopped scooters, explained how to drive on the trails, what speed to choose, intoxication was measured. There were the other intoxicated.
Were you wearing helmets? Going into the elements of that company’s lease, to my knowledge, scooters can only be rented by an adult over 18 years of age. He has no helmet. There are tricks, parents rent through apps, pay from their parents’ phone and become drivers. In this case, it is necessary to wear a helmet, but controlling who where in the city may have rented it, is very difficult, the responsibility lies with the parents. Parents should be aware of what they allow their child to wear, ensure safety when wearing a helmet, report any threats, etc.
– After the disaster, the city mourned with the family, but often really thought about the driver, who had no less pain.
– There are many more events like this, not the only one where a scooter is knocked down. Only the consequences are different, kill or be injured.
As for this particular incident, by not wanting to say who the culprit is, let’s let the investigators fully investigate it. In general, drivers who find themselves in such situations, not to mention at fault, actually experience the impact, and not least. It is easy or difficult to cause shock if you don’t communicate with just one person. Faced with this situation, the police remained indifferent. We have local psychologists, we send them to the place to communicate with both parties. We try to alleviate that heart ache, the psychological state without expecting anything. We made sure the state psychologist helped here, there as much as possible. We understand this is a bit of parenting sympathy, but we help out as much as we can.
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