Drivers have a foreign accent

In 2022, citizens issued almost 180,000 international driving licenses at the traffic police, which are required to drive vehicles abroad, twice as many as a year earlier. Experts explain this by the mass migration of compatriots and the active development of autotourism. Against this background, the demand for ordinary Russian rights has decreased, according to police statistics. Another curious detail: only 12% of Russians were able to pass the traffic police exams on the first try.

Data on the work of the examination units of the State traffic inspectorate in 2022 is published in the statistical section of the traffic police website. It says that just over 7 million exams for rights were held in the Russian Federation – 8% less than in 2021. Of these, the State Traffic Inspectorate gives details, 3.32 million times there was a test of theoretical knowledge, 3.58 million – practical driving skills in real traffic conditions (“city”) and 152.4 thousand – testing of initial driving skills (“platform” ). The last type of exam, we recall, has been canceled for applicants for categories of rights B, C, D since April 1, 2021. Tests on the “site” remained only within category A (and other two-wheeled vehicles), due to which the number of exams passed has decreased by more than five times. In 2022, 34.9% passed the theory the first time (in 2021 – 36.7%), “site” – 42% (in 2021 – 39%), “city” – 12.4% (in 2021 – 15.6%).

In total, according to the results of the traffic police exams, 1.35 million citizens received a driver’s license in 2022 (-12% by 2021). Of these, category B was opened by 1.1 million (-8.3%), category A – 59.5 thousand (-3.2%), category C – 120 thousand (+2%), category D – 32, 6 thousand (+4%). The number of tram drivers who received their license for the first time increased by 62%, and the number of trolleybus drivers increased by 21%.

The number of licenses issued to replace those lost or expired due to expiration decreased by 41% to 2.5 million. January 1, 2022 to December 31, 2023, automatically for three years. This decision affected a total of about 5 million documents, the White House reported.

At the same time, the number of issued international driving licenses (IDPs) required to drive vehicles abroad more than doubled – from 82.6 thousand to 179 thousand. This is more than in 2020, when 68.3 thousand were issued, but less than in the pre-Covid era: in 2019, 215.8 thousand IDPs were issued, in 2018 – 182.2 thousand, in 2017 – 154.2 thousand people

It should be noted that the accident rate due to the fault of novice drivers (with driving experience up to two years) decreased by 5.1%, to 7.7 thousand accidents. The number of those killed in such accidents decreased by 11.8% over the year, and the number of injured by 4.4%. Among the regions where the number of accidents with novice drivers has increased are Magadan, Kostroma, Ivanovo, Pskov regions, Karelia, Dagestan, Buryatia.

The two-fold increase in the number of issued IDPs is due to several reasons, says Piotr Shkumatov, coordinator of the Blue Buckets movement. Firstly, this is the mass migration of citizens abroad in connection with the conduct of a special military operation (for the same reason, in a number of regions last year many cars were deregistered, Kommersant talked about this recently), he explains, as well as active development of autotourism. “Many more people have recently begun to travel to the countries of Central Asia, Mongolia, China in their cars,” explains Petr Shkumatov. For this, IDPs are needed.”

President of the Interregional Association of Driving Schools Tatyana Shutyleva emphasizes that the number of citizens who passed their driving license after the initial training in a driving school (that is, those who did not have a license before) decreased slightly over the year – by less than 7%, to 1.1 million people . “This means that the need and demand for driving training among the population remains, despite all the circumstances,” the expert notes. “The market of educational organizations has not fallen either: the number of driving schools, judging by the statistics of the traffic police, has grown from 7 thousand to 7 over the year, 5 thousand.

“Recently, people come to study less often,” Elena Zaitseva, head of the National Union of Associations of Driving Schools, shares her observations. 59%.— “b”). The number of new students has decreased by about the same, especially since September, and especially among young people under the age of 30, who make up the bulk of potential driving school customers. Many left Russia or changed their minds while studying.”

Elena Zaitseva explains the decrease in the effectiveness of passing exams on the first try by the continuing effect of the exam reform (cancellation of the “platform”) in 2021, which seriously complicated the conditions for passing the rights. The exam, we recall, has become unified (the initial driving skills are checked immediately along with driving skills in the city), and the maximum number of penalty points that the inspector puts for mistakes remains the same – five. In the regulations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for passing exams, concessions are needed in this part, Ms. Zaitseva believes. She expects that this will be done as part of the finalization of the document: back in 2022, the traffic police promised to collect proposals from driving schools and amend the regulations, but there are no exact dates yet.

Ivan Buranov