Traffic police in Moscow offered rides on horses and ponies
painted as zebras Friday in an attempt to improve road safety and
raise awareness among Russia's notoriously careless drivers.
The police dispatched the fake zebras to several different
locations in the Russian capital, where officials in orange vests
walked them over zebra crossings and handed out flyers to passing
drivers.
Some held up rainbow-coloured umbrellas over the painted animals
to protect them from the rain, footage aired on television
showed.
Russian roads are notoriously dangerous and drivers still rarely
give way to pedestrians.
More than 9,500 people were killed and more than 100,000 injured
in road accidents in the first six months of 2010, according to
official statistics.
Nearly half of all traffic accidents in the country's big cities
are caused by cars hitting pedestrians, and a third of those occur
on crossings, according to traffic police figures published last
month.
Though police officials said that only safe paint would be used
on the animals, animal rights activists still fumed over the idea,
accusing the police of "treating animals like garbage."
"Children understand that paints are toxic for animals: they can
cause internal swelling," the Interfax news agency quoted president
of Vita animal rights group Irina Novozhilova as saying.