Today, President Viktor Yanukovych will introduce to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine a draft law of Ukraine on amendments to some legislative acts of Ukraine eliminating excessive state regulation in the sphere of road transportation, Presidential Advisor, Representative of the President in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Olena Lukash said today at a briefing, according to the Press office of President Viktor Yanukovych.
She said that the main purpose of this bill is to simplify the procedure of mandatory inspection and control of the technical condition of vehicles, cancel unnecessary costs for car owners, eliminate the existing corrupt mechanisms of obtaining mandatory vehicle inspection certificates, and remove inefficient and excessive regulatory procedures.
The bill also specifies the relations between a traffic police inspector and a driver on the road, and sets the minimum number of papers a person needs for driving a car.
"As experience shows, the current inspection system cannot provide real control over the technical condition of vehicles. In most cases (according to experts, in about 90% of them) vehicle owners buy vehicle inspection and medical certificates through well-established corruption schemes. Experts estimate that annual volumes of these informal corrupt payments reach a billion UAH," Olena Lukash said.
According to the bill, she said, all types of privately owned cars, regardless of their make, model, or service life will be subject to unconditional release from the mandatory technical inspection. This also includes trailers, motorcycles, scooters, etc. If a car is used for business purposes, its owner will still have to pass mandatory technical inspection every two years. Trucks and taxi vehicles will be inspected annually. Buses and special vehicles transporting dangerous goods will be checked twice a year.
The bill foresees transferring technical inspection functions from traffic police to private car service stations. These stations will fill out a special protocol of assessment of technical condition of a vehicle, which will be then given to the vehicle’s driver.
Olena Lukash also noted that recently, the practice of arbitrary checkups of citizens by traffic police officers has gained alarming rates. Such actions violate their rights and freedoms. The bill, she said, addresses that issue too, clearly defining the grounds for a police officer stopping a vehicle.
Amendments to the Law of Ukraine "On Militia" suggest establishing a comprehensive list of these grounds. In addition, police officers will be obliged to inform the drivers on the reason for stopping them and the nature of offense committed by them, she said.
The bill also includes amendments to the Code of Administrative Offences. It abolishes administrative responsibility for driver’s refusal to hand over his or her driver license to traffic police officers (it will be enough to just show it for validation), and the responsibility for not having the mandatory inspection certificate, which is abolished altogether.
However, it is proposed to establish administrative responsibility for failure to pass technical inspection of vehicles, subject to obligatory control (the suggested fine is 340-425 UAH), for issuing the vehicle condition certificate to an owner of the vehicle, subject to mandatory technical control, without in fact checking its technical condition (1700-2040 UAH), for selling mandatory civil liability insurance certificates to owners of vehicles subject to mandatory inspection without the vehicle condition certificate (1700-2040 UAH).
