The court sided with the children: the Ministry of Right-Bank obliged to ensure traffic safety at school No. 651

"MK in St. Petersburg" has repeatedly written about "bureaucratic football" around the solution of the problem of traffic safety at school No. 651 in the Nevsky district. Various government agencies have been shifting responsibility for solving the problem on top of each other for years, while children and parents of schoolchildren were put at risk almost daily. The fact is that in order to get to the territory of an educational institution, schoolchildren need to cross an intra-quarter passage, which is formally a courtyard territory, and in fact is used as a full-fledged highway, which even passing drivers may not know. Therefore, in practice, there is no talk of compliance with the speed limit of 20 km / h. Often, motorists accelerate here to 60 km / h and above, as on an ordinary city road.

For a long time, parents of schoolchildren appealed to various authorities, and the problem was repeatedly covered in the media, including on television. The need to install road signs was also stated by the leadership of the educational institution.

It seemed that the bureaucratic knot would continue to unravel for years, but the denouement came unexpectedly. At the last meeting, the court interviewed as third parties representatives of the Directorate for Road Traffic Organization of St. Petersburg and the State Traffic Inspectorate, who generally supported the prosecutor’s requirements, and invited the parties to start the debate. The defendants reiterated that the municipality has neither the means nor the authority to place road signs that must be installed next to artificial irregularities. The Nevsky District Prosecutor’s Office summarized its position in the debate.

As a result, the court concluded that since the territory has the status of intra-quarter passage, the installation of road signs is recommendatory, but optional. According to the decision, the municipality (if it does not appeal the decision) must make artificial irregularities within a month from the date of entry into force of the decision, that is, approximately by the beginning of winter. However, the road signs at school 651 are unlikely to appear.

It is important to note that despite the fair decision of the court, similar problems exist at other addresses. And everyone will probably have to decide through the courts. Therefore, finally affect the situation, in our opinion, will help only the introduction of changes in the city legislation. So let’s hope that the MPs will pay attention to the situation and finally fix the obligations of municipalities to perform similar works in the subordinate territories.