The Protector of Citizens identified omissions in the work of the Secretariat for Transport of the Belgrade City Administration because it failed to provide the equipment for blind and low-vision people in the form of acoustic signals for crossing the street after it removed the pedestrian traffic light during the reconstruction of the lighting signalization on pedestrian crossings.
Following the complaint of a mother of the child with low vision from Belgrade that the reconstruction of the lighting signalization on the crossroads disabled her child from moving independently, as the child used to do before, since pedestrian traffic lights were removed from a large number of crossroads, the Protector of Citizens launched an investigation to control work legality and regularity of the Secretariat.
Due to the need to improve the position of children with impaired eyesight and ensure their better safety as traffic participants, the Protector of Citizens believes that the Secretariat needs to ensure the same level of exercising the rights for persons of impaired eyesight who prior to these reconstructions of lighting signalization could move independently because they could see the lighting signal on the pedestrian traffic light which was located at the traffic island.
Due to these reasons, it is necessary to undertake all the measures to ensure that acoustic signal for safe crossing is installed on the pedestrian crossings of wide city streets in Belgrade. In this way the safety and security would be ensured not only to children but to the adults of impaired sight as well.
In the Recommendation to rectify the shortcomings, the Protector of Citizens requests that in future the City Secretariat installs the equipment for marking the paths for the movement of blind and low-vision persons in the form of acoustic signals for crossing the street on all pedestrian crossings on which the pedestrian traffic light is removed and to notify the Institution on acting upon the recommendation within 30 days.