Police to control the behaviour and safety in traffic of vulnerable road users

Publication date 30.9.2022 13.22
News item

The police will organise intensive controls of compliance with the traffic rules and the safety of unprotected road users on Monday 3 October 2022.

Control will be targeted in particular at cyclists and operators of light e-vehicles and focus on compliance with the rules at traffic lights, cyclists riding on the pavement and operators of light e-vehicles driving on the pavement, compliance with give-way rules at junctions and the use of headlights in the dark and dusk.

Control will be targeted also at motorised vehicles.

“The police will also intervene in stopping and parking that inconveniences and endangers the mobility of vulnerable road users,” says Chief Superintendent Heikki Kallio at the National Police Board. 

Kallio says that the police will mostly intervene in cases where a vehicle has illegally stopped or parked on a pavement, pedestrian crossing, cycle path, cycle path extension or within five metres before a pedestrian crossing, cycle path intersection or cycle path extension intersection. Parking control will be carried out together with municipal parking control authorities.

Vulnerable road users account for a high rate of fatalities

“Vulnerable road users accounted for 47% of road traffic fatalities in the EU in 2017. This figure includes motorised two-wheeler vehicles. This is why the safety of these road users must constantly be the focus of safety work,” says Kallio.

Statistics published by Statistics Finland show that 534 cyclists, 255 pedestrians and 598 motorcyclists were injured in road traffic (incidents of which the police are aware) last year.

”It should be pointed out, however, that the police are not made aware of all accidents involving cyclists, especially so-called single accidents, where there are no other parties involved and so these are not recorded in the official statistics. This means the number of injuries is significantly higher that the so-called official statistics,” Kallio reminds us.