No time, no money

There are two reasons why people prefer not to follow the rules. One is that it takes time, and usually people simply prefer not to waste it on what they see as, in most cases, an "academic" procedure. In many cases, it really is an academic check given that most drivers tend to check their brakes and lights on a regular basis, making it unlikely that even a 15-year-old car would fail.

The other reason for skirting the procedure is money. As stipulated in the ordinance, one of the documents people need to show is the receipt for road tax paid. This tax, depending on the car’s engine, could vary between 100 and 200 leva, in some cases even more. For example, the tax on  an 1.6 litre eight-year-old vehicle in Sofia this year is 167 leva.

Significantly, many people drive second-hand cars that are worth no more than a couple of thousand leva and they see paying the road tax  as an unreasonably high expense. Such drivers can avoid payment by simply not registering the vehicle in the local tax administration.

Currently, a car  vendor must go in person to notify the local tax administration so as not to be charged the tax next year. It is up to the buyer to register the car in his name in his respective administration, which many people fail to do, and local administrations are left with thousands of uncollected road tax every year -  but that’s another issue. Meanwhile, all drivers must have the annual maintenance inspection sticker so that they are not pulled over by traffic police.

The scheme   
Those who have all their papers in order, but want to avoid spending time, are taking advantage of licensed shops that perform the service by doing nothing more than going through the car’s papers.

This works on the theory that if all papers are in order, and the car is relatively new, then everything must be fine. Of course, in such cases one needs a friend or a colleague who knows such shops as it is not a service publicly advertised. It is the good old Bulgarian way of "I know someone who can do this and that". It’s like asking for a good plumber or a dentist; there is always someone who knows someone who can do the job. In 2009, the fee that reputable shops charge is 40 leva. The service at less reputable shops costs 35 leva.

Usually these are shops outside Sofia, in small towns and even villages, and it could take a few days for the package (the sticker) to be delivered. In Sofia,  however, the latest trend is to call such shops, which will deliver the sticker to the car’s owner.

This service is more widespread since shops are more willing to make a compromise, not physically inspecting the car since it has all of its papers in order. Some shops, however, are even willing to issue stickers to drivers who have not paid their road tax or simply fear that their cars would not pass the exhaust fume test.

This is possible because the ordinance’s section on how inspections are to be processed says that the drivers must present the shop with both these documents, but in its weekly report to EAAA, the shop has only to report on the vehicle’s registration number, the third-party liability insurance policy, the driver’s ID number and names. It does not require the shop to include in its report the road tax receipt. So the only authority that checks whether drivers have all their papers in order are the shops themselves, not the EAAA.

In a private conversation, an employee at one of Sofia’s reputable shops said that it depended on shopowners’ responsibility how the inspection was done. "I do no more than 10 inspections a day, 40 leva each, while there are colleagues who do between 20 and 30, at a cost of 35 leva each"."

Buses
When it comes to passenger buses, naturally there is more paperwork regarding safety. Most transport  companies have their own shops to do inspections, and computer programmes have been implemented so that results are input the moment the inspection is done. When it comes to small companies with one or two buses whose owners fear that they might not pass the inspection, the scheme is to copy data from another bus.

This problem was acknowledged by EAAA head Volodya Kirov who, in an interview with Bulgarian National Television after the May 28 accident, said that there were problems which could be solved by installing a "face control system". This, he said, would ensure that buses and trucks were indeed being checked. This, however, will need additional human resources at the EAAA, whose employees would have to go through every tape in order to check the reliability of the reports filed by the shops.

Of course, another way to do it would be to make shops record the numbers of road tax receipts when reporting back to the EAAA. This could happen by only including a new clause in the EAAA ordinance. Local tax administrations would certainly have nothing against such an idea.