2022

Road safety lessons at school could become a prerequisite for young drivers to secure their learner’s licence as government ministries discuss measures to improve driving standards.

Meetings have been held between government ministries to see what can be done, with the transport and education ministries studying which measures could be brought in at schools to cultivate a greater culture of road safety.

One such proposal is that attending road safety lessons at school become a prerequisite to obtaining a learner’s driving licence.

Elsewhere, the transport and education ministers looked to conscripts at the national guard – a demographic seen as more likely to be involved in crashes.

Proposals may be made to hold road safety seminars at the army camps.

Source: Authorities mull changes to learner’s licence requirements | Cyprus Mail

Municipalities may soon deploy traffic cameras of their own following the green light from the transport ministry, but offences such as speeding won’t be recorded.

The reopening of Nicosia’s revamped Makarios Avenue brought the issue to prominence as one of its two lanes is open only to buses and a few eligible vehicles – as per EU stipulations, which funded the project – but all manners of other cars are encroaching on the bus lane.

Nicosia municipality has said that it is unable to prevent private cars from entering the bus lane without the assistance of a camera monitoring system – which would issue fines to ineligible vehicles veering into it.

“They are currently being installed and the network will be operational by May or June,” Nicosia mayor Constantinos Yiorkadjis told SigmaLive on Wednesday morning.

Yiorkadjis said that the police are responsible for preventing ineligible vehicles from entering the bus lane and not the municipality’s traffic wardens – who instead only check for parking violations.

But it remains undecided as to whether the police or the municipalities will bear responsibility for the camera system, Yiorkadjis said.

Discussions are underway to revise the institutional framework which would permit the camera systems to operate, a process which got further underway following a meeting hosted on Tuesday by the transport ministry. The union of municipalities attended, as did legal advisors who are to draw up plans which will in turn be sent to the transport ministry, the legal services and eventually parliament for a vote.

As it stands, the cameras deployed by municipalities will only issue fines for parking violations and vehicles entering lanes they are not permitted.

Makarios Avenue reopened on December 7 but it was announced that all vehicles will temporarily gain access, seemingly in contradiction to the stipulations set out by Nicosia’s urban mobility plan.

Source: Municipalities eye installing traffic cameras | Cyprus Mail

Source: Shake-up coming for used-car industry | Cyprus Mail

Cyprus has moved a step closer to changing the law on driving licences for mopeds and motorbikes, an area which has long been criticised as being too lax but could dramatically shake up the food delivery industry.

The council of ministers on Wednesday approved the transport ministry’s proposal to amend the law, which would require that learner drivers be accompanied by a licensed driving instructor on another vehicle.

The proposal must still pass a vote in parliament, but the changes would have a significant impact on the delivery industry – in which many currently work solely with a learner’s licence.

The law currently allows for moped – and some motorbikes with certain specifications – to be driven indefinitely with just a learner’s licence.

This provisional licence is obtained merely by passing a road sign test.

The ministry’s proposed changes also seek to impose a timeframe for the eligibility of a learner licence to two years and require that learner drivers must wear more protective clothing – as would be expected of a motorbike driver, such as high visibility vests and trousers.

Should the holder of a learner’s licence fail to proceed to obtaining a full licence, they will have to reacquire their provisional one.

The proposal also lays out that learner drivers must wear jackets or a high vis vest, trousers, boots or adequate shoes, protective knee pads and gloves.

The protective gear stipulations also apply to drivers of motorbikes and mopeds who use the vehicles as part of their work.

The transport ministry said the proposal was shaped following decisions made by the road safety council, which also highlighted that 16 motorcyclists died from crashes in 2019, 14 in 2020 and 14 in 2021.