With Ramadan Bayram, also known as Eid al-Fitr, approaching and aligning with the spring midterm break for schools in Türkiye next week, the Interior Ministry shared Thursday a circular focusing on traffic safety measures across the country.
During Eid festivities, which will be marked between April 21-23 this year, hundreds of thousands of Turks based in metropolises, including Istanbul, are expected to hit the roads to visit their relatives in their hometowns or head toward the resort towns in the south and western provinces, thus causing a density in traffic in overall.
According to Anadolu Agency (AA) reports, the Interior Ministry shared Thursday a circular dubbed "Ramadan Bayram Traffic Measures in 2023," sent to 81 provincial governors.
As with every holiday involving a higher rate of travel, additional traffic police crews will be dispatched to the main roads to ensure safety. As per the statement made by the ministry, strict traffic precautions will be taken and a total of 51,300 police and gendarmerie traffic teams, accounting for 99,245 personnel, will be deployed on highways during the stated period.
To ensure the highest level of traffic safety and monitor traffic flow, patrols will also be conducted with 13 helicopters and 138 drones across the country.
According to the ministry, the air-based surveillance will be intensified in Istanbul, the capital of Ankara, the provinces along the Aegean coast including Izmir, Manisa, Muğla and Balikesir, in the Mediterranean tourist hub Antalya, as well as in central provinces of Eskişehir, Kayseri, Yozgat and Konya. Other provinces that will also benefit from aerial traffic monitoring will include Afyonkarahisar, Aydın, Bursa, Kocaeli, Manisa, Sakarya, Adana, Ağrı, Balıkesir, Batman, Burdur, Diyarbakır, Isparta, Niğde, Osmaniye, Tekirdağ, Yalova and Van.
In addition, 36 police and gendarmerie chief inspectors and six members of inspection groups are set to oversee the teams dispatched on the ground.
At the same time, the use of car seats for small children, seat belts and helmets during Eid road trips is also set to be reinforced and monitored. During inspections, information materials will be distributed by teams in the field.
Furthermore, it was announced that public announcements and videos relating the traffic security measures will be featured on television channels and on www.trafik.gov.tr.
Similarly, posters with slogans focusing on raising awareness for safe driving, such as "Kemerim hep aklımda," translated as "Seat belt always on my mind," "Bu yolda sana çok güveniyoruz," roughly translated as "We trust you on this road," will be hung up in designated locations.
Law enforcement teams will also be deployed to spots on 20 highway routes where the highest number of traffic accidents occurred in the last three years during the Eid celebrations.
The vehicles transporting seasonal agricultural products will not be allowed to travel between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m. inter cities, according to the circular's regulations, to help reduce traffic.
Ensuring traffic safety is a crucial concern in Türkiye, as official data released by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) in May 2022 shows that 5,362 individuals lost their lives, and 274,615 individuals were injured in accidents throughout the country in 2021.
