Prague - Efforts of the Prague administration to make Prague drivers behave better have been successful according to the city council.
Within the last four months there have been 30 percent less cases of speeding than in the same time in 2007, said Jiří Wolf, the spokesperson for the city council.
He also said that the number of accidents caused by speeding went down by 24 percent. In comparison with 2006, the number of accidents has declined by 64 percent.
The city hall claims that measuring speed in certain areas has been crucial for the improvement.
Measuring helps
"We have built a network of road sections where we measure speed. They cover the most critical spots in Prague. There are 17 of them today and there are 14 additional systems that automatically monitor cars driving on red," said Rudolf Blažek, the first deputy mayor of the city council who is in charge of Prague transportation safety.
The police say that releasing the information about the monitored spots online has also helped improve drivers' behavior.
City council has also introduced stricter measures for speed violators. Those who do not pay fines on time will be handed over to an executor.
Vladimír Kotrouš, the head of Prague police, said that courts received 34,000 orders of execution.
Speeding, gesturing and reading
The camera system has, for example, caught a driver who broke speeding records driving through the Mrázovka tunnel. He drove 164 kilometers per hour which is 94 km faster than the speed limit.
Cameras have discovered other bad habits among drivers. "The cameras havecaught drivers who stick half of their body out of the car, others make obscene gestures or read newspapers or maps while driving. Many drivers pay more attention to their passengers than to the road, and some eat, "said Wolf.
"There have been cases when the drivers try to cover their face with various objects to avoid being identified," said the spokesperson. All of the above mentioned violators have been handed over to the Unit of Transport Offences of the Prague city council.
Between January and April, there were more then 15,000 violations, which translated into a total of 26 deducted points and 1,500 fines higher than CZK 1,000.
Most of the drivers have exceeded the speed limit by less than 20 km/h. More than one hundred drivers drove faster than 20 to 39 km/h over the limit. About fifty people did not obey the red signal.
