Parents of child road crash victims call on Verkhovna Rada to strengthen liability for systematic traffic violations
Parents of children affected by road accidents and civil society organisations are calling on the authorities to urgently strengthen liability for dangerous and systematic traffic violations in order to reduce road deaths.
This was reported by Oleksii Hlushych, father of 12-year-old Hryhorii Hlushych, who was killed in a road accident at Karavaievi Dachi in Kyiv, Censor.NET informs.
Details
"Hrysha’s death inside the pedestrian underpass shattered our lives, our mental health and our sense of purpose. One small remaining purpose is to secure a just punishment for the driver Pleshyvtsev in accordance with the law.
A greater purpose is to bring about real changes on the roads, changes that will make drivers genuinely comply with traffic rules. This would prevent similar cases in the future," he stressed.
According to Oleksii Hlushych, all that is needed is to pass legislation on fines, driving disqualifications, liability for drink-driving, road accidents involving casualties, the killing of children, and so on.
"And the police need to carefully enforce the law for a couple of months and publicly demonstrate the consequences. Then, I am convinced, the situation on the roads will change quickly," he said.
Such a bill already exists, Hlushych noted. He was referring to Bill No. 15348-1, which is scheduled for consideration by the Verkhovna Rada next week.
Appeal to the Verkhovna Rada
In a joint statement, parents of children affected by road accidents and civil society organisations recalled that 12 MPs had registered Bill No. 15348, which provides for higher and graduated fines depending on the extent to which the speed limit was exceeded.
However, it did not provide for driving disqualifications for repeated speeding, tougher liability for driving without a licence, or other dangerous violations.
All these changes are included in the alternative Bill No. 15348-1, authored by 51 MPs from various parliamentary factions and groups.
"Unfortunately, without waiting for expert opinions, holding a serious and comprehensive discussion, or inviting representatives of the expert community to its meeting, the Law Enforcement Committee hastily decided, without serious justification, to reject this comprehensive bill. Committee members did not vote to apply the procedural provisions that would make it practically possible to incorporate important provisions of the alternative bill when preparing Bill No. 15348 for its second reading," the appeal said.
The signatories therefore called on the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Law Enforcement to:
- Support legislative initiatives aimed at reducing road deaths and injuries and preventing their unjustified weakening;
- Review its conclusions of 15 July 2026 concerning Bills Nos. 15348 and 15348-1 and revise its recommendation to allow the bill to be finalised for its second reading in accordance with Part One of Article 116 of the Verkhovna Rada’s Rules of Procedure.
They also called on the Verkhovna Rada to consider Bills Nos. 15348 and 15348-1 at a plenary sitting without delay and to ensure that the final version of the law includes provisions on:
- Substantial increases in and a graduated scale of fines for speeding;
- Driving disqualifications for repeated speeding and other particularly dangerous violations;
- Tougher liability for driving while disqualified;
- Lowering the threshold for speeding without penalty from the "Russian standard" of 20 km/h to no more than 10 km/h.
At the same time, the National Security and Defence Council, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the National Police and the Cabinet of Ministers are being urged to urgently consider the appeal addressed to the President of Ukraine, support the measures proposed in Oleksii Hlushych’s petition, and ensure their implementation at the legislative and administrative levels.
Fatal road accident in Kyiv on 5 June 2026
- As a reminder, on 5 June in Kyiv, the driver of a Mercedes car drove at high speed into a pedestrian zone near Karavaevi Dachi in the Solomianskyi district.
- Senior Police Lieutenant Dmytro Bondarchuk, Police Lieutenant Denys Budchenko and 12-year-old Hryhorii Hlushych, whose father is currently serving in the war, were killed at the scene.
- Iryna Lazareva, an employee at a pre-school, was also killed.
- The court remanded the killer driver, Pleshyvtsev, in custody; he had driven into an underpass in Kyiv, killing four people.
- The father of 12-year-old Hryhorii Hlushych, who was killed in a traffic accident in Kyiv, registered a petition calling for improved road safety and penalties for reckless drivers; the petition gathered the required 25,000 signatures for consideration by the president in just 14 days.
