Toll roads have translation difficulties

Cars with foreign license plates have become a serious problem for toll road operators – this was discussed yesterday in the State Duma. Representatives of Russian departments admitted that they could not get them to pay for travel – at the end of 2023, the debt of “foreigners” reached almost 370 million rubles. Moreover, this amount will soon increase when there are more toll roads. Discussion participants complain about legislative gaps and insufficient interdepartmental interaction.

Ensuring the “inevitability of punishment of foreign citizens and foreign carriers for violating the rules of travel on toll roads” was discussed yesterday at a meeting in the State Duma Committee on Transport. Representative of the Ministry of Transport Anton Kozlov presented data on the debt for travel on the Avtodora toll roads, which is registered with vehicles from foreign countries. In 2021, this amount was 129 million rubles, in 2022 – 280 million rubles, and at the end of 2023 – already 369 million rubles. The main problem arises from foreign passenger cars, added the head of Rostransnadzor, Viktor Basargin: more than 50% of violators in this category do not pay fines.

The meeting participants explained why it is virtually impossible to punish the owners of foreign cars. Viktor Basargin and traffic police representative Andrei Klimenko explained that Rostransnadzor does not have the authority to stop a passenger car, and the traffic police does not have the right to administer violations for non-payment of fares. Russian cars can be fined automatically, but Rostransnadzor simply does not have the necessary data on “foreigners.” In theory, they can be obtained from the Federal Customs Service (FCS), but the information exchange system between the two departments only became operational on April 1, and it is not yet clear how effective it is.

Another option is to not let foreign cars leave the country until the fine and debt are paid. But representatives of the Federal Customs Service, speaking at the meeting, stated that they were against giving them additional control functions. In addition, this will not solve all problems – when transiting through Belarus, drivers are not stopped due to the lack of border control, so they cannot be detained for non-payment.

The head of the Duma Committee on Transport, Evgeny Moskvichev, called for resolving the issue in the near future, since the problem could worsen on regional toll roads (two such routes will open in the Moscow region this year). Mr. Moskvichev promised to raise this topic at a meeting of the Avtodor supervisory board on April 5.

The meeting participants acknowledged that the problem of impunity for foreign cars has been known since 2018. Then Avtodor reported that over the course of a year, more than half a million speed limit violators from neighboring states were identified on one 300-kilometer section of the M-1 highway. This is more than 50% of all violators on this section of the road, but none of them received a fine. Let us recall that even then experts told Kommersant about the need to establish interaction with the Federal Customs Service.

Vice-President of the National Automobile Union Anton Shaparin confirms that the problem is “long-standing and large.” According to him, the union contacted the Ministry of Internal Affairs several times about this. “This needs to be put in order. The number of migrants has grown, and the number of cars with foreign registration has also increased,” he explained. “There will be even more such cars.” Only traffic police officers on the roads can control this, but there are clearly not enough of them.”

Ivan Buranov