Changes to the state building regulations on the design of public roads entered into force on September 1.
The Ministry of Regional Development, Construction, Housing, and Utility Services announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.
"The new regulations provide for mandatory narrowing of the leftmost lanes on the largest highways (category I highways) to 3.5 meters from 3.75 meters during construction of new highways. This is expected to improve traffic safety on new highways," Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing, and Utility Services Lev Partskhaladze said.
“The relationship between lane width and road accidents has been repeatedly proven around the world. According to statistics, there is a higher concentration of accidents on wider roads. This is because two cars instead of one can travel on such roads, which means that there is a significantly higher risk of accidents and collisions. Therefore, we have introduced the European practice of narrowing the leftmost lanes on highways to ensure that drivers are more attentive while driving and reduce the number of traffic accidents," Partskhaladze said.
In addition, a new width of 3 meters instead of 2.5 meters has been introduced for stopping lane on highways of higher categories (categories I-II). Provisions have also been made for modern and safer requirements for design of horizontal and vertical curves to allow design of mountainous and other highways on complex landscapes with the aim of ensuring better visibility.
According to Partskhaladze, the previous width of stopping lanes (2.5 meters) is dangerous, especially for trucks, and only causes additional accidents on roads. Therefore, according to him, a decision was made to expand it to 3 meters to increase road safety.
As the CFTS reported earlier, there are plans to build rumble strips on Ukrainian roads from autumn 2019 with the aim of increasing road safety.
