Entrepreneur calls for safer roads and accessible healthcare

Entrepreneur and driver Lauris Lauskis says Latvia urgently needs to improve road safety and access to healthcare, LSM reported.

Lauskis founded a business simulation for young entrepreneurs called Millionaire’s Mind and also works in education, developing people’s thinking. He said the most pressing issues in Latvia are healthcare and traffic safety.

Based on his own experience, Lauskis said free healthcare was not truly available because people who are willing to pay can obtain high-quality medical services relatively quickly. Although he has been able to afford such treatment, he is concerned that many people cannot.

He wants Latvia’s life expectancy and quality-of-life indicators to improve over the next four years.

Lauskis was born in Jelgava and lives in Jūrmala. He often travels to Riga, where he has seen trucks carrying logs driving through the city. He said this was one example of what could be changed to improve traffic safety.

He also called for more four-lane motorways and suggested that aggressive and drunk drivers could be required to take courses or clean up crash sites as a form of punishment. Lauskis said the current system was not effective.

To fund these measures, he said money should no longer be poured into what he called the “black holes” of airBaltic and Rail Baltica.

LSM spoke to people from different walks of life before the elections to the 15th Saeima, asking what they expect from the next parliament and what changes they want to see over the following four years.