• Kavi Bhalla, Nino Paichadze, Shivam Gupta, Vladimir Kliavin, Elena Gritsenko, David Bishai, and Adnan A Hyder.
• Johns Hopkins International Injury Research Unit, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
• Inj. Prev. 2015 Feb 1; 21 (1): 53-6.

AbstractReducing vehicle speed is among the most effective road safety strategies. We assess how a new policy in Russia that eliminates fines for driving up to 20 km/h above the speed limit has affected the prevalence of speeding. We measured speeds periodically in 13 districts of two Russian regions during 2011-2013 and analysed the effect of the policy using difference-in-differences to control for seasonality. We find that the prevalence of speeding was declining steadily but half of the gains since mid-2011 were lost immediately after the new policy. Overall speeding increased significantly by 13 percentage points (pp, 95% CI 4 to 19). Speeding more than 10 km/h above the limit increased significantly by 10 pp (95% CI 2 to 12), and extreme speeding increased but not significantly (1.7 pp, 95% CI -1.1 to 4.5). Road traffic injuries will likely increase in Russia unless speeding fines are reinstated.Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

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