You can drive around London, Paris or Berlin all day long and not see a single local traffic cop (that is, a traffic policeman) during all this time. At the same time, there are more cars in European cities, traffic is denser, and accidents happen incomparably less often than in our country. It would seem a complete paradox: an unmeasured horde of automoments - and endless horror on the roads. In fact, there is no paradox, because order and comfort on the streets and highways are not the concern of the Russian traffic police.
Moreover, this order and comfort directly contradict the main interest and meaning of the existence of the traffic police - self-enrichment. For every normal (that is, corrupt) traffic cop, any traffic violation is a joy, since it is fraught with a large or small bribe. Naturally, these violations of the traffic police are provoked in every possible way: unjustified speed limit signs are put up, turns are prohibited contrary to any common sense, a continuous dividing strip is applied exactly where it should not be ... And traffic police officers are always located near these skillfully invented traps and collect tribute (And this, among other things, complicates traffic).
Even in the case when a cunning motorist bypassed all ambushes, he can be stopped and robbed (first aid kit, dirty number - whatever). Like Krylov: “You are to blame for the fact that I want to eat” (the fable “The Wolf and the Lamb”).
I do not want to say that there is no benefit from the traffic police at all. For example, in Moscow, during the rains, traffic lights are cut down all the time, and traffic controllers in raincoats with hoods coordinate traffic at intersections. Thank them very much for this. But this is more the exception than the rule. And as a rule - just where they are most needed, there are no traffic cops.
Some noble-gangster "Gelendvagen" brazenly parked across a narrow street, and because of it there is a traffic jam in both directions - where is the traffic police? In the middle of the road is a huge pit, disguised as a puddle; cars squash suspensions and douse pedestrians from head to toe - where are the signs, where are the traffic police? At the crossroads - a bunch of small ones, a traffic jam for hundreds of meters in all directions, continuous beeping, abuse and panic - where is the traffic police ?! And here they are, by the way, darlings, - two hundred meters from the "hot spot": instead of improving traffic, they gut motorists with a buzz, who, out of desperation, are trying to get out of the "riser" through a solid line ... In this picture, absolutely typical, - all the meanness and worthlessness of our traffic police / traffic police. They even managed to come up with license plates so ugly and awkward that there is no worse in the whole world.
The whole truth about the traffic police has long been known to everyone, but this does not change the state of affairs - and it is clear why. The roof of the traffic police - in three reels. Firstly, they perform an important (albeit more than dubious) function of providing nomenclature transportation - all these notorious and hated corteges with traffic blocking. Secondly, they simply confuse and keep the people in awe, which has always been appreciated by the authorities in a state with centuries-old traditions of the oprichnina. Thirdly, and most importantly, the GAI, of course, shares its gigantic unearned income with other authorities - both at the municipal and federal levels.
In fact, the traffic police is the second, shadow system of taxation of millions of citizens of the country. Leaving aside the issue of lawlessness, I admit that this is not very good for the country's economy either. If only because the billions (I'm sure I'm not exaggerating) rubles, settling in the pockets of traffic cops and state parasites standing behind them, could get into legal, not shadow circulation.
In short: 1) the harm from the traffic police / traffic police is much more than good; 2) this system is not subject to reform, since it is flawed in its essence, and honest work for the benefit of citizens contradicts its entire structure; 3) at the same time, the traffic police enjoys the unlimited support of corrupt authorities.
What to do: 1) disband the traffic police as a (semi) independent organization, reduce the staff by at least ten times and return to what it (traffic police) was before it became the current NKVD-shaped monster - a modest police unit for traffic control and theft control; 2) entrust “tuple” functions (they should concern only the head of state and his foreign guests) to the presidential administration; 3) to design a uniform without pockets and with transparent gloves for the remaining in the service of the “new policemen”.
It is clear that neither the parliament nor the government, whose bodies are riddled with money-bearing arteries from the traffic police, will not approve these reforms. It remains to rely on President Putin and his understanding that it is extremely inconvenient to enter modern Europe with such wild feudal baggage as the traffic police.
host of the discussion section of Novaya Gazeta