“In 2009 we even exceeded the plan of the traffic police, setting 2500 traffic signs, 7 traffic lights and marking 1.3 million meters of road,” says Hakob Altunyan, chief engineer of Lusanshan state non-profit organization, dealing with installment of road signs and traffic lights. “This year much more should be done: the 3500 road signs and 17 traffic lights should be installed, including 139 LED traffic lights for vehicles and 110 traffic lights for pedestrians, as well as about 300 countdown timers for the traffic lights,” he said.

According to the chairman of Achilles NGO, Eduard Hovhannisyan, no work for traffic regulation has been carried out since 1987. “We have no coordinated traffic rules, and we are facing problems even in the small city center, not to mention the suburbs,” Eduard Hovhannisyan says.

Meanwhile Hakob Altunyan assures that since last year, no difference has been made in setting traffic lights and road signs in the city center and suburbs, although there are problems. “41 road signs have already been set in the districts of Yerevan in 2010. Still, Traffic Police is in charge of establishing standards for the quantity and location of road signs to be set,” he says.

2 million meters of roads are scheduled for marking in 2010. But even those turn into a subject of dispute between drivers and road police officers, as in some cases ill-considered placement of road signs hamper proper functioning of road traffic, according to Eduard Hovhannisyan.

“Numerous road signs are misplaced or re-painted by drivers,” Hakob Altunyan says. “Unfortunately, perpetrators are hard to be caught in the act and the chain of violations continues.”

While we witness a blame-shifting game, traffic accidents rate keeps growing. 153 road accidents were registered in January, according to official statistics provided by Armenian Police.