Viktor Kiryanov: "Hey, it happens everyday."

As head of Russia's Department of Transport Safety in the Interior Ministry, Viktor Kiryanov is the country's top traffic cop, or "Glavnii Gaishnik." Given his title, it should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Russia that yesterday afternoon, Kiryanov's Mercedes ran over a woman while she was crossing the street in central Moscow. It should also come as no surprise that according to the official account, it was all the pedestrian's fault for getting in the way of Kiryanov's Mercedes.

The head Gaishnik flattened the woman on Ulitsa Solyanka, just down the road from my house in a one-way street (wonder which way Kiryanov was going?). Ambulances were immediately called to the scene, but the woman's condition, or whereabouts, or is-she-alive-abouts, are still unknown. What is known is the statement released by the Department of Transport Safety's press secretary: "We're all participants in road travel and no one is immune to events taking place on the road, not even the head of the GIBDD [acronym for the traffic police department]."

According to gazeta.ru, a witness on the scene said that Kiryanov's Mercedes ran a red and slammed right into the woman, who was walking in the crosswalk on a green light. The witness said that Kiryanov's car was traveling the wrong way down the one-way, a lane reserved only for trolleybuses, and that her body was tangled up in the rear of the Mercedes when he ran up to see what had happened. He described the woman as "seriously injured" and said her forehead was covered in blood.

In reply, the GIBDD's press spokeswoman, Alena Yaroschenko, shot back, "Why can't you consider the possibility that the pedestrian caused the accident?"

That's right, so the next time you're forced to cough up a bribe to the GAIshnik, just remember, they're only human, just like…well, not like you and me, but like other high-flying bureaucrats to whom the law doesn't apply (such as Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov's son Alexander, who did a few donuts on a 68-year-old babushka's body as she crossed the street, but as it turned out, legally it was her fault for dying in his axles!). Sure, it may be true that they're never at fault for any car accident, but just because a humble bureaucrat like Mr. Kiryanov isn't ever at fault for flat-caking some hapless pedestrian, it doesn't mean he's immune from the hassle of having to wash said babushka's blood off of his Mercedes grill, or picking her brains out from his U-joint. O, the humanity!

--Mark Ames