On April 11, 2014 a joint road safety initiative of the Kocherinovo "Road Safety Advocates" team and "Open Youth" will be carried out, starting at 12:30 at the Youth house in Blagoevgrad. 

The initiative will include: • alco- and drugvision goggles, simulating vision under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and what is the effect on human capabilities; • driving simulator, recreating risky driving situations; • specially designed weight calculator, showing everyone how heavy his/her body is in a collision with a given speed (50, 90 or 130 km/h); • puzzle showing the participant the inability of a person to do two different activities at the same concentration.

The Kocherinovo team is comprised of a high school teacher, as the team’s leader and three pupils, one boy and two girls. They all are very ambitious, full of ideas and fun, gladly joining any school initiative or competition.

Together the youngsters audited a section of “St. Ivan Rilski” str. which is right across the town’s main square. A staggering number of violations (157 in total) were observed committed by only 50 vehicles. The most common one being failure to stop at a “Stop” sign, 40% of all drivers. 37% are using cell phones while driving and 30% are turning or changing lanes without signaling first. Failure to maintain a proper distance is the case in 20% of the violations. As far as pedestrians are concerned 20 people were observed during the one hour audit and 76% of them failed to cross at the marked location.

The team arrived at the conclusion that the poor traffic culture of both the drivers and the pedestrians as well as the poor maintenance of the sidewalks, road surface and markings is a contributing factor towards the road safety problems in that particular spot. The lack of a pedestrian traffic light makes it difficult for people with sight problems to cross the street. In order to address the issue the youngsters suggest that a traffic light be placed and that the surrounding road infrastructure could be reworked and the crosswalk repainted. Also measures to educate all groups of road users must be undertaken.

The project "Road Safety Advocates" is co-financed under the "Youth in Action" program of the European Union, action 1.3 by NC "EYPI". It is aimed at educating young people not only to detect problems but also to look for solutions.