QUALITY IMPROVEMENT OF PRACTICAL TRAINING ON THE SUBJECT "THE ROAD TRAFFIC REGULATIONS"
Authors: Kolosok I. 
Published: February 2023

In recent decades, the world has seen a rapid increase in the number of vehicles and an increase in traffic, which leads to an increase in the number of road accidents and their negative consequences. For example, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), road traffic injuries are one of the biggest health problems today. Road accidents are projected to be one of the top five causes of death in the world in 2030. In Ukraine, the level of deaths and injuries due to road accidents is one of the highest in Europe, and the level of road safety remains extremely low, as repeatedly pointed out in their reports by experts from the WHO, the World Bank and other international institutions. More than 26 % of those killed and 15 % injured in road accidents in 2019 are pedestrians (1,414 people died and 8,455 people were injured). In 2019 alone, 329 children under the age of 18 died on the roads of Ukraine and 7,906 children were injured. Accidents in Ukraine are the first most common cause of death for young people aged 15 to 24 and the second most common cause of death for children aged 5 to 14. Thus, in 2019, compared to 2018, the number of road accidents increased by 7 %, as well as the number of dead and injured persons by 4.2 % and 6.3 %, respectively. Ukraine is also one of the leaders among EU countries in terms of specific indicators of accidents and consequences of road accidents. Thus on average in the EU member states (according to 2017 data) there are 5 fatalities in road accidents per 100 thousand populations, while in Ukraine this figure is (according to 2017 data) 12.5 people, respectively, which is more than the European average. 150 %. It is also important to note that in the absence of quality data collection on injuries and deaths due to road accidents, these indicators may not reflect the present figures. A significant number of road accidents that occurred in Ukraine during 2017-2019, as well as people injured in them, affect the economy and health care of Ukraine. Studies conducted by many countries establish a general rule that every death costs about 70 gross domestic products per person, and every serious injury to a person amounts to about 17 gross domestic products per person. If we apply this rule to the indicators given above, it becomes clear that the cost estimate of socio-economic losses of Ukraine (excluding material costs associated with property damage and reduced productivity) from these accidents and their consequences in 2019 alone is about 4.79 billion US dollars (3.18 % of Ukraine's gross domestic product). The main reasons for this situation are the insufficient level of road safety; improper maintenance of vehicles; low level of discipline of road users; inconsistency of the state of the road network with the level of traffic intensity; insufficient introduction of the latest technologies and technical means of traffic organization; low level of training of future drivers. The article considers the problems of the educational process related to improving the quality of practical training of students in the discipline "Traffic Rules" and suggests effective ways to solve them by differentiating approaches to managing the cognitive activity of students.