Last Thursday, the Brno Transport Company (DPMB) presented a tram nicknamed “zombie”, which is a symbol of this year’s campaign focused on the safety of road users in the city. The tram warns of the danger of collisions with pedestrians and other drivers and will circle the city for at least a year. Photo credit: DPMB
Brno, April 4 (BD) – The zombie tram, a symbol of this year’s campaign focused on the safety of road users in Brno, went into service for the first time on Thursday, 31 March.
“After the relative calm caused by Covid-19, people are returning to the streets and cars, and again we have heavy traffic, clogged roads, rising nervousness, inattention, all of which contributes to the number of accidents that occur. The vast majority of them are unnecessary. We want to appeal to the residents of Brno not to behave like zombies, and that is why we are sending a zombie tram to the streets,” said Miloš Havránek, Director of DPMB.
As part of the “Brno, Safely” campaign, DPMB will also raise attention to other issues such as inattentiveness when crossing, safe entry and exit with strollers, and visibility on the roads. It also includes educational programmes for kindergartens and primary schools.
DPMB has 550 vehicles and twice as many drivers in operation every day. “We see what is happening on the streets. Our buses, trams and trolleybuses were involved in 715 accidents last year, most of which were caused by a failure to give way to our vehicles. In the last three years, 43 pedestrians have ended up under the wheels of our trams because of inattention. Mobile phones and handsets only compound the problem. The aim of our campaign is to draw attention to this issue,” said Havránek.
“There were 2,397 accidents in Brno last year,” said Petra Ledabylová, prevention coordinator of the South Moravian Regional Police Directorate. “Six people died, 70 incurred serious injuries, and 639 escaped with minor injuries. These numbers have not changed dramatically in recent years, they are proportional to the traffic density in the city. However, our aim is to reduce them, so we welcome the DPMB initiative and we are very happy to join the campaign. We have promised to lend cars and staff for the preventive actions that the transport company is preparing,”
