On March 1, the updated rules of vehicle inspection come into force: all cars arriving at the checkpoints will be photographed, and their owners will receive electronic diagnostic cards. This is done to exclude the possibility of buying a document on the passage of MOT. However, drivers will only encounter innovations in the fall: by a government decision, the validity of car diagnostic cards is automatically extended by six months. Thus, until October, it will not be necessary to visit the maintenance points.
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin signed a government decree, according to which diagnostic cards (required to purchase an OSAGO policy), which expire from February 1 to September 30, 2021, have been extended by six months (but not less than until October 1). This means that a car owner whose diagnostic document has expired, for example, on March 10, must undergo MOT and receive a new one no earlier than October. And if the date of the previous inspection is July 1, a new one will be required no later than January 1. According to Kommersant’s estimates, we are talking about about 14 million cards issued since March last year.
Premier Mishustin made a statement on the need to “postpone the new procedure” for carrying out maintenance on the eve of the start of the industry reform (see Kommersant on February 26). For its launch, a new version of the law on maintenance, amendments to the Administrative Code, a number of orders of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Economy, as well as government decrees, were previously adopted. All of them come into force on March 1.
The main innovation that awaits motorists at maintenance points is electronic diagnostic cards (insurers will have access to them when issuing OSAGO) and photographing the car during diagnostics.
The technical inspection operator transfers the images along with the coordinates to the EAISTO Ministry of Internal Affairs information system for the technical inspection, without these data the map will not be generated. The coordinates will subsequently be compared with the coordinates of the inspection points: if they do not match, the card can be canceled as fake.
From now on, traffic police inspectors are involved in checking the condition of buses during maintenance. The technical inspection, we recall, is carried out by an expert technician who previously independently signed diagnostic cards of vehicles that have passed diagnostics, including buses. Now an inspector will work at the maintenance point, whose functions include, in fact, checking the results of the inspection and reconciling documents. Without the conclusion of the inspector of technical supervision, the diagnostic card also cannot be formed.
Note that since 2011, the traffic police officers did not work at the maintenance points. It was the traffic police that several years ago insisted on the return of control over the technical inspection of buses in connection with the increase in accidents and the number of deaths in accidents with these vehicles. According to the traffic police, in 2020, the number of accidents due to malfunctions of transport, including buses, increased by 13.7%, to 7.6 thousand accidents, 1.2 thousand people died.
Under the new law on MTPL (also comes into force on March 1), the insurance company will be able to file a recourse claim for compensation for damage in an accident against the driver, through whose fault the accident occurred.
To do this, it is necessary to prove that the car was faulty and did not pass the inspection on time (there was no diagnostic card).
Inspection points are now obliged to comply with the new requirements of the order of the Ministry of Transport No. 232 (presence of opacimeters, backlash meters, flowmeters, devices for checking toning and other equipment). Operators will be monitored by the traffic police – employees can conduct unscheduled inspections, test purchases and other activities.
Amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses, which also come into force in March, increase the liability of operators for violations in the field of technical inspection, including the transfer of data to EAISTO on a car that did not come for inspection. The maximum sanction for legal entities is a fine of up to 500 thousand rubles, for officials – disqualification for up to three years.
The start of the TO reform was previously postponed – from June 2020 to March 2021 – due to COVID-19. The moratorium initiated by Mr. Mishustin raised another wave of discussion about the cancellation of maintenance and the transfer of the procedure to a voluntary basis. This is indicated, in particular, by the coordinator of the Blue Buckets movement Pyotr Shkumatov and State Duma deputy Vyacheslav Lysakov.
Ivan Buranov
A new road sign for the designation of cameras is introduced into the SDA
From March 1, by the government decree No. 2441, a new road sign 6.22 “Photo and video fixation” is introduced into the traffic rules. It identifies the places where fixed or mobile traffic cameras can be used. A new sign is placed outside the settlement at a distance of 150–300 m to the control zone of each camera, in the settlement – only once at the entrance to it.
The appearance of the new sign will be fixed by amendments to GOSTs. The changes have already been approved, said Rosstandart, the document will be published on March 1. The new sign is more likely to retain the appearance of plate 8.23 “Photo and video fixation” used today. The difference is that it can be used against a yellow background (to indicate temporary cameras in the road works area), as well as set independently without reference to another sign (for example, “Speed limit”).
This decision, as Kommersant told earlier, was preceded by a discussion between the Scientific Center for Traffic Safety of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the MADI Institute, the Ministry of Transport, the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate and other experts. A scenario was discussed in which the sign 6.22 would be a blue rectangle with a camera image, but this option was abandoned. The plates that were installed before March 1 will remain in place to save the budget, de jure they will simply change their status, the Ministry of Transport explained earlier.
Ivan Buranov
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