Russia has a road security problem, and it is performing one thing about it by decreasing the quantity of drivers on the road. While not the most nuanced strategy, statistically speaking the move sort of checks out. The country’s selected criteria for paring down the quantity of licensed drivers, on the other hand, is as illogical as it is appalling. According to the BBC, the notoriously anti-gay and discriminatory state has decided to ban transsexuals, these with “sexual problems,” and a host of other individuals from acquiring drivers’ licenses. Dilemma solved?
Skill—or the lack of it—should be the only arbiter when it comes to figuring out who deserves the privilege of handling a vehicle. Russia’s attempt at legislating its way out of a spiraling road-safety problem is little a lot more than bigotry, a deployment of a politically well-known conservative Russian ideology targeting a minority group who clearly aren’t the root cause of site visitors accidents. No doubt Russian lawmakers are hoping to gain points for the look of pro-safety action whilst also notching a win with the seemingly huge number of intolerant Russians.
In addition to transsexuals, any person with a rash of “mental disorders” that includes such not-mental issues as fetishism, exhibitionism, pathological gambling, and kleptomania. (The World Health Organization classifies these as “impulse” and “sexual” disorders.) You do not need us to explain that these proclivities have extremely, really little to absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the operation of a motor automobile. Intriguingly, Russia’s driving ban also covers “voyeurism” it is not presently clear how this article of the government’s driving order jibes with Russians’ widespread use of dash cams.
While the Russian law positively drips with discrimination, it is not as if the nation woke up one day and realized it was suffering too many traffic-associated deaths—estimated at about 30,000 folks per year—and went in search of an individual to pin it on. Only just signed into law, the bill arrives at a particularly hard time for Russia’s government. Those low gas costs every person here is dancing about? They’re pinning Russia’s fossil-fuel-dependent economy to a wall. Blaming an unpopular issue on an unpopular minority is an straightforward “win” for a country bent on distracting its men and women from bigger problems. Ironically, the these larger problems, including the tumbling worth of the Russian ruble, might have the ultimate limiting effect on the pool of drivers: Automakers recently suspended Russian sales until the economic climate improves.
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Wait, What? To Increase Road Safety, Russia Bans Transsexuals and Other individuals with “Sexual Disorders” from Driving
