The Road Traffic Control Department (), abbreviated as ORUD (), was the

road traffic control : ''For the road traffic science, see various articles under :Road traffic management, Road traffic management.'' Road traffic control involves directing vehicular and pedestrian traffic around a construction zone, accident or other road disruptio ...

highway patrol A highway patrol is a police unit, detail, or law enforcement agency created primarily for the purpose of overseeing and enforcing traffic safety compliance on roads and highways within a jurisdiction. They are also referred to in many countri ...

and traffic law enforcement department of the Soviet

Militsiya ''Militsiya'' ( rus, милиция, 3=mʲɪˈlʲitsɨjə, 5=, ) were the police forces in the Soviet Union until 1991, in several Eastern Bloc countries (1945–1992), and in the Non-Aligned Movement, non-aligned Socialist Federal Republic ...

. It was in operation from 1931 to 1961, when it was merged with the

State Automobile Inspectorate The State Automobile Inspectorate (, GAI), formerly known as the Main Directorate for Traffic Safety of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia (, GUOBDD, or , ГИБДД, GIBDD) is a federal law enforcement agency of Russia specializing in hi ...

History

The number of traffic accidents in the USSR greatly increased at the beginning the 1920s.

Moscow City Police The Moscow Police (), officially the Main Directorate of Internal Affairs of the City of Moscow (), is the police force for Moscow, Russia. The Moscow Police is the largest regional police force in Russia with 50,500 officers as of 2010, with p ...

recognized the need for general road traffic control, and in 1931 The Road Traffic Control Department (ORUD) was established. A special ORUD's department that handled the

driver's license A driver's license, driving licence, or driving permit is a legal authorization, or the official document confirming such an authorization, for a specific individual to operate one or more types of motorized vehicles—such as motorcycles, ca ...

s was opened as well. It also assigned Vehicle registration plate, license plates. A Member of parliament, Member of Mossovet Boris Sokolov () was appointed the head of the department. Vasily Chugunov () became the Senior Inspector. There were only 145 employees at first. RIAN archive 493933 A policewoman on a Moscow street

RIAN archive 493933 A policewoman on a Moscow street

By 1931 the number of ORUD employees increased to 500. On 20 March 1932 the Council of People's Commissars released a statement "About the Centralized Accounting of the Accident Rate and Local Transport Accidents". Since then, the road accident statistics was officially calculated. The same year the first traffic lights and a position of a traffic guard were introduced in Moscow. The first highway patrol was formed in March 1933 and it consisted of 50 people. In 1936 the State Automobile Inspectorate, also known as GAI, was established. Among its responsibilities were the prevention of motor vehicle theft, car theft, the recovery of stolen vehicles, calculation of transport properties, supervision over the drivers training, and calculating the overall numbers of motor vehicles. In 1961 ORUD was merged with GAI. The joint agency was called RUD-GAI (), which was later changed to simple "GAI" and in 1998 became the Main Directorate for Road Traffic Safety (Russia), Main Directorate for Road Traffic Safety of Russia.

Uniforms

The Road Traffic Control Department officers on the streets, e.g. the traffic guards, had a capital "R" (Cyrillic Р) on the left sleeve. In the 1940s the colour of the uniforms was dark blue or white with dark blue trousers, depending on the officer's rank. Wearing high boots while using motorcycles was obligatory. As of June 1957 the appearance of the badge was changed to a red-framed dark blue rhombus with a capital "R" in the centre.{{cite web , url=http://www.vedomstva-uniforma.ru/mil43-58.html , title=Ведомственная геральдика - Главная страница

History

Uniforms

References

See also