The average speed is converted into fines – Newspaper Kommersant No. 29 (7474) dated February 16, 2023

The authorities of a number of Russian regions, the Ministry of Transport, as well as manufacturers of traffic cameras are asking to reintroduce fines for violating the average speed. This practice was canceled by the traffic police in 2021 after criticism of the Supreme Court. This led to an increase in accidents, said representatives of the subjects of the federation, speaking on Wednesday in the State Duma. Reimbursement of sanctions for violators, as it turns out, is not easy. The Ministry of Justice and Rosstandart are talking about the need to amend laws and adopt by-laws.

The topic of speed control on the roads of the Russian Federation on Wednesday was devoted to a round table in the State Duma. In particular, it was about sanctions for exceeding the average speed. This parameter (in contrast to the instantaneous speed) is recorded by several cameras located on the road section. Traffic police, remember stopped punishing violators in the summer of 2021. The Supreme Court found it “inadmissible” to designate a stretch of road (rather than a specific location on it) as “the place where the offense was committed.” In the same year, Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin instructed the departments to “work out proposals” and regulate this issue in legislation, but the matter has not been completed. “Opinions and points of view on this issue in the parliament are still divided,” Rifat Shaikhutdinov, first deputy chairman of the Duma Transport Committee, explained on Wednesday. Therefore, it was decided to interview experts.

Representative of the Moscow Traffic Management Center Vladimir Karpov said that in 2019-2021, the average speed was controlled on 30 road sections.

Returning to this practice, Mr. Karpov believes, will allow controlling, in particular, the speed of passage of tunnels and overpasses, where it is not always possible to install a complex.

In the Moscow region in 2019-2021, there were 174 such sections, continued Vitaly Rezanov, deputy head of the Ministry of Transport near Moscow: after the introduction of control, the accident rate decreased by 45%, after the cancellation it increased again. According to Mr. Rezanov, there are 150 polling stations in the Moscow region where this type of control needs to be returned. The representative of the Smolensk region, Anton Bogomolov, said that fines in the region were sent out on nine sections of the M-1 Belarus highway, which had a “very positive” effect on traffic safety.

The issue under discussion “is overripe for a long time, it needs to be addressed,” said Anton Kozlov, deputy director of the department of state policy in the field of road infrastructure of the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation. The vice-president of the National Automobile Union, Jan Heitzeer, added that the least accidents happen to truckers who move evenly along the highway with minimal deviations from cruising speed: you need to ensure that passenger cars drive the same way.

The discussion mainly centered around how and where to secure the possibility of issuing fines for average speed. This should take place under certain conditions, said Eldar Tuzmukhametov, executive director of the OKO association (which unites camera manufacturers): the section of the road should be without the possibility of an alternative detour, the speed limit on it should be the same, the section should be under the jurisdiction of one court, the point of violation will be be considered the last chamber. The relevant conditions can be described in the Code of Administrative Offenses, the expert believes.

Ministry of Justice spokeswoman Daria Zaykina said that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Justice had previously made public their position, which was that the rules for controlling average speed are a “technical issue” that is not related to the regulation of the Code of Administrative Offenses. The code can fix, for example, a norm with reference to a by-law of the government, which will describe the details. Ms. Zaykina did not rule out that traffic rules would also have to be changed. It is necessary to decide in advance in what form the changes will be made, the representative of the Ministry of Justice emphasized.

“If the norm is drawn up incorrectly, then the Constitutional Court will then recognize it as illegal,” said Daria Zaikina. “There were many bills in the State Duma with good ideas, adopted in the first reading, but not developed due to the fact that they could not agree on the technical component “.

It is also necessary to amend government decree No. 1847, which contains a list of measurements “related to the sphere of state regulation of ensuring the uniformity of measurements,” added Evgeny Lazarenko, deputy head of Rosstandart, because average speed control is not mentioned there. There were no representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the State Duma on Wednesday, however, in January 2022, the police said that it was “premature” to return fines for average speed.

According to the results of the round table, Rifat Shaikhutdinov told Kommersant, a protocol will be signed, which, most likely, will form the basis of an appeal to the Russian government.

Ivan Buranov