Insurers are asking the Moscow City Hall to finalize the project for registration of an accident on the Moscow Ring Road

The scheme for registering minor accidents without the traffic police using cameras on the Moscow Ring Road, launched a few months ago by the Moscow City Hall, did not become mass. The authorities have handed over 300 videos to insurers so far, allowing them to determine the circumstances of the accident and make a decision on compensation for damage to the victims. Representatives of insurance companies interviewed by Kommersant note that they often simply do not have time to obtain the data necessary for making a decision: the TsODD stores the video for only five days, and citizens come with statements about the settlement of losses later. Sometimes the quality of the shooting does not even allow you to determine the brand of the vehicle. Officials have already announced their readiness to improve the service.

One of the serious problems on the Moscow Ring Road remains the so-called secondary accidents – collisions of vehicles with citizens who stop to file minor accidents without the traffic police according to the European protocol. Since 2020, the mayor’s office has been discussing various measures to deal with these incidents. So, at the beginning of the year, the Moscow TsODD began to provide insurers with video from cameras on the Moscow Ring Road. Motorists are also invited, after making sure that there were no casualties in the accident, quickly remove the cars from the roadway and complete the clearance outside the road. After sending the documents to the insurance company, company representatives have the opportunity to sort out the conflict situation by studying the footage from traffic cameras.

TsODD since the beginning of the year has presented a video on more than 300 requests from insurers, Kommersant was told in the center. The total number of minor accidents on the Moscow Ring Road that occurred during the same period is unknown: no one keeps statistics on accidents settled by the new method. In the insurance company Soglasie, Kommersant was told that 102 insured events were settled with the help of the new technology. In Yugoria, Kommersant noted that so far there were “single requests” in the work. The number of requests to the company with “such issues is currently insignificant,” Kommersant was told in Ingosstrakh. Igor Ivanov, deputy general director of RESO-Garantia, also speaks of “isolated cases.”

Representatives of the insurance market interviewed by Kommersant point to a number of problems with video recording technology. According to the results of the first months, Ekaterina Grineva, head of the claims settlement methodology department of the Russian Union of Motor Insurers (RSA), told Kommersant, it turned out that the CDIA needed, first of all, to increase the shelf life of materials. “Initially, it was about five days, but this is not enough: the average period for car owners to apply for the settlement of a loss under the European protocol is seven to ten days,” she explained. companies do not refuse, since late application for payment is not a basis for refusing compensation for damages. The Kommersant problem was also confirmed in Soglasiya: since the start of the experiment, 222 requests have been sent to the TsODD. Filming was provided in 50% of cases because the retention period had expired. Igor Liukin, Deputy General Director of Absolut Insurance, said that for 60% of the requests sent to the TsODD (within a ten-day period), the video was no longer in the archive. The VSK insurance house is talking about the same problem: customers applied with applications after the video storage time had expired.

Ekaterina Grineva also draws attention to another problem – the quality of the video. It is not always sufficient to establish in detail the circumstances of the accident. “The quality of the materials provided is low, it is impossible to determine the brands of vehicles and other identification information of the participants in the accident,” the “Consent” confirms. “In 60% of cases, the material is simply not informative.” “Part of the footage does not allow us to read the license plate, to identify the vehicle,” Igor Liukin confirms. Ekaterina Grineva also mentioned cases when, during heavy rain or due to interference (for example, a tall truck drove near the camera), nothing was visible on the video. In “Consent” and “RESO-Garantiya” “Kommersant” confirmed that they also encountered this.

In such situations, insurers do not use video to make a decision, the PCA explained, but are guided only by the documents of the participants in the incident. If everything is set out correctly in the accident notice, the scheme is drawn up, the conditions of the European protocol are met, the damage will be compensated in full, Yekaterina Grineva assured Kommersant.

“We are considering the option of storing video for up to 30 days, after analyzing the operation of the entire system, we will be able to determine exactly what storage period is most appropriate,” the data center said at Kommersant’s request to comment on insurers’ complaints. As for the quality, then, they assure the TsODD, the cameras have “high accuracy and a self-cleaning function in bad weather.” “Initially, we assumed that in 5% of cases the camera’s view could be blocked by a truck or some kind of obstacle,” the center told Kommersant. “At the same time, the number of such cases is currently minimal, and there were no requests from insurance companies in such situations” .

The system should work in such a way that car owners quickly decide how best to file an accident – with a European protocol or by calling the traffic police, says Alexander Shumsky, head of the Probok.net expert center. “The driver must be sure that there is a camera in this particular place, he can clean the car right now without thinking about any problems in the future,” he explains. The TsODD is able to store it for as long as the insurers ask.” He is sure that if the experience is successful, the technology can be applied on other highways and in other cities of Russia: “This is a very timely project.”

To prevent “secondary” accidents on the Moscow Ring Road, patrol cars of the TsODD also work, which, in case of an accident, help to fence off the accident site. In addition, at the 70th kilometer of the ring road (not far from Mitino) there is a sound alert: in the event of an accident, all traffic participants are informed through the speaker that the accident was recorded by the camera and cars can be removed from the roadway.

Ivan Buranov