EASST Partner in Moldova: Automobile Club of Moldova (ACM)

EASST Partner: Serghei Diaconu and ACM

Serghei first became an EASST partner as President of the Automobile Club of Moldova (ACM). Since then he has been promoted to become an advisor to the General Secretary of the Government of Moldova and to Prime Minister Filat. As a result of our EASST police exchange, he has been given the additional responsibility of leading the reform of the Ministry for Internal Affairs including road policing.

The ACM road safety team leader is Tatiana Mihailova – a very capable and hard-working deputy to Serghei.

Launch of Make Roads Safe Oct 2009

EASST’s work in Moldova began with a Make Roads Safe Campaign Launch involving EASST Chairman Lord Dubs, ACM President Serghei Diaconu, EASST Director Emma MacLennan, and senior members of the Moldovan government hosted by the World Bank Country Office. This led to the creation of a new National Road Safety Council chaired by the Prime Minister and involving key ministers and the traffic police. The new Council produced a National 5-Year Plan to improve road safety in Moldova. The ACM are partners to this plan.

Saferoads.md website

Soon after this launch the ACM published a new website in Romanian, Russian and English to publicise their activities, provide information on road safety, and advertise upcoming events. This was followed by the creation of an active Facebook page.

Road Safety Assessment in Moldova

Over 90% of Moldova’s roads need rehabilitation. One of EASST’s key achievements in Moldova has been to persuade both the Moldovan Government and the donor group, headed by the World Bank, to amend the planned road rehabilitation and construction programme to include an assessment of Moldova’s road network by iRAP. This meant tearing up the Compact already signed by the government and donors to add road safety as a criterion – a major feat of persuasion. iRAP results for 2,500 km of roads are being published in Moldova in May 2011 with a forward by the Prime Minister. iRAP and the World Bank are now discussing an assessment of Armenia’s roads.

Road Safety Weeks

The ACM carry out ‘Road Safety Weeks’ every month, ensuring issues are always in the public eye. They have been good at finding opportunities to promote road safety messages such as the importance of seat belt wearing, curbing speed, child car restraints, drink-driving, etc. These weeks of activity have also been aimed at government and local authorities, getting them to think about road safety as a matter of public policy. They combined their activities with the distribution of information leaflets, tyre pressure gauges, etc. They have organised numerous poster campaigns and press conferences – often in cooperation with local police forces or schools – getting good media coverage for their efforts.

Children’s Road Safety Education

Another major area of ACM activity has been road safety education in schools. For International Children’s Day they produced a children’s activity booklet and - working with the Traffic Police - visited schools in the 3 largest cities in Moldova. They have also developed a training package on safe road use for primary schools, staged competitions among schools, and involved 7 radio stations in a public awareness campaign on pedestrian safety.

Police Reform

Serghei was the Moldovan partner in EASST’s police reform project, along with Gela from Georgia and involving senior UK police. This has had a lasting impact: the driver licencing centre in Chisinau has been revamped to prevent cheating, with new corruption-free testing vehicles. The World Bank has been persuaded to make policing a greater priority in its road safety strategy. Serghei himself has been given responsibility for guiding future reform.

One area where he has used his influence to good effect is in improving data collection by the police. They now collect very detailed information on all accidents involving serious injury or fatalities.

Policy Development

The ACM, working with Serghei, are working to develop government policies on road safety across all the relevant departments. They have been successful in a number of areas; the use of daytime running lights, winter tyres, establishing a new Traffic Control Centre, and the adoption of a National Road Safety strategy.

Automobile club of Moldova (ACM): http://www.acm.md/en/default.asp