The number of people killed in road traffic accidents in Ukraine since the beginning of the full-scale invasion by Russia has almost reached the number of civilian casualties of the war, and the number of people injured in road accidents exceeds the number of civilians injured by Russian shelling by almost three times, reported Oleksandra Terletska, the mother of 12-year-old boy Hryhoriy Hlushych, who died on June 5 in a car accident on Chokolivskyi Boulevard in Kyiv.
"People write about how their loved ones, their mothers, their children, their beloved husbands, wives died — not from Russian aggression, not even from it, but at this time on the roads, in traffic accidents that could have been avoided, and which can realistically be avoided in the future, I believe in this. These are terrible stories, these are stories about drunk drivers, about people who fled after what they did and who have still not been found... These are unacceptable stories, this is what should not happen, this is what I do not see next to us in the future," Terletska said during a press conference titled "Mortality on roads is a matter of national security: petition to the president" at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Friday.
The event participants announced the start of collecting signatures for a petition to the president calling to bring the issue of road mortality and injuries to the consideration of the National Security and Defense Council. Its author was the father of the deceased boy, a serviceman of the 2nd Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine "Khartia" Oleksiy Hlushych.
"We registered a petition on the president's website stating that we demand systemic changes. Increasing fines is not enough. Drivers like Pavlo Pleshivtsev (who caused the accident in which Hryhoriy Hlushych died – IF-U), who had 39 recorded violations alone, will just as well pay increased fines, just as well step on the gas, just as well kill our children," he said.
According to the father of the deceased, the petition contains a demand for systemic changes. "In the draft law registered by the authorities, there is almost nothing about gross violations. In addition, we call in the petition to punish systemic violators. If a person does this not for the first time, not for the second time... then their license must be revoked, the person must walk. And if a person suddenly drives without a license, and we know that this is also a common practice in our country because driving without a license is just a fine. If a person drives without a license, their car should be confiscated, they should be put in prison. Systemic violators must understand that they won't get off with just a fine," Hlushych emphasized.
In addition, the authors of the petition call for an increase in criminal liability, since Pleshivtsev "faces a maximum of 10 years, while stealing cat food in a store is punished with five years in prison." According to the father of the deceased, this is inadequate liability.
"In order for changes to truly happen and people to stop dying on the roads, interagency cooperation is needed. Actually, that is exactly why the petition addresses the president, so that after discussing the issue of road safety at an NSDC meeting, each body, each ministry, each relevant institution receives a specific task, and interagency and intersectoral cooperation takes place," he said.
According to the National Police, during the first five months of 2026 alone, 911 people died on Ukrainian roads, including 52 children. During this period, 8,256 road accidents involving fatalities or injuries occurred, and the total number of victims exceeded 10.4 thousand people. Speeding remains the main cause of road mortality. Child mortality in the first five months of the year increased by 15.6% compared to the same period last year.
"My son died due to a systemic violation of traffic rules that was not stopped in time. We cannot bring Hryhoriy back, but we can do everything so that other families do not experience such a tragedy. The state must learn to stop systematic violators before they take someone's life," Hlushych emphasized.
The authors of the petition propose canceling or significantly reducing the non-fined speeding threshold, increasing fines with differentiation depending on the level of speeding, introducing a system of penalty points, the possibility of revoking driving privileges for systematic violators, strengthening liability for driving a vehicle after being deprived of a driver's license, expanding automatic violation recording systems, developing safe road infrastructure that physically forces drivers to reduce speed, and conducting regular national information campaigns on safe road behavior.
The initiators of the campaign call on the authorities to start a comprehensive road safety reform, as only a combination of modern legislation, safe infrastructure, automatic control, inevitability of liability, and systemic education can significantly reduce mortality on Ukrainian roads.
As reported, four people were killed, including a child, and three were injured in Kyiv on Friday as a result of a road traffic accident on Chokolivsky Boulevard in Kyiv, during which a car drove onto the pedestrian part of the street and into an underground pedestrian crossing. The driver was also injured; he was detained and is under guard in a hospital ward; he was notified of suspicion under Part 3 of Article 286 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine — violation of the rules of road safety or operation of transport by persons operating vehicles if they caused the death of several people.
It was established that at the time of the accident, the driver was sober, but since January 2025, he had been brought to administrative responsibility five times for speeding, and fined five more times for other traffic violations.
Deputy Head of the Patrol Police Department Oleksiy Biloshytsky reported that 39 traffic violations were recorded for the car that caused the fatal accident on Friday on Chokolivsky Boulevard in Kyiv, most of them specifically for speeding, with 18 of them during the past year alone. He believes that the current situation in punishing traffic violators requires serious reform.
