European Union nationals who drive in Bulgaria can no longer feel let off the hook because of their driving licences if they commit a road traffic offence.
Three months ago, Parliament ratified the European Convention on the International Effects of Deprivation of the Right to Drive a Motor Vehicle. The convention went into effect on September 1. According to its regulations, any foreigner with an EU passport who violates Bulgarian traffic laws and commits a road traffic offence can have his or her driving licence taken away. The same applies to a Bulgarian driving in any EU country.
Until now, foreigners could get away with road traffic offences in Bulgaria because there was no legal mechanism for the traffic police authorities (KAT) to sanction the perpetrators. What foreigners were usually getting were tickets for speeding or fines of no more than 20 leva.
The routine for a motorist who has been pulled over is the following: the offender is issued with a document (called an “act” in Bulgarian). The act states the type of the offence, where it took place, the offender’s address, names and the name and rank of the police officer at the site.
The offender is given the option to either sign the act, which means that he agrees to the fine, or not to sign it, which gives him the opportunity to protest the imposed fine before the traffic police within 30 working days.
The latter option had, until now, been the reason that foreigners were not being issued an act. Because being a foreigner included the possibility that the offender would be leaving the country sooner than in the next 30 days, he was deprived of his right to protest the fine, which made the act futile.
With the convention coming into force, this problem was solved. As part of the convention, Bulgaria now has the mechanisms to suspend the driving licence of any road offender and contact his home EU country.
The information related to suspended driving licences of EU nationals will be collected by a special unit in the KAT system. Such a unit has yet to be set up. This unit will provide the information about the road offence to the traffic police authorities of the country that issued the driving licence and the contracting party in whose territory the offender is currently residing.
Article 5 of the convention does not limit the rights of the contracting parties to impose the measures provided for in their legislation. This means that in different EU countries, offenders might be sanctioned differently for the same road offence.
According to Bulgarian law, motorists who break the speed limit by 31km/h to 49km/h are fined 200 to 250 leva and their driving licences are suspended for three months. When drivers exceed the permitted speed by more than 50km/h, they will be fined 300 leva and their licence will be suspended for up to three months.
The licences of drivers found to have a blood alcohol content (BAC) of more than 0.5mg per 100 millilitres of blood will be suspended for up to six months.
Driving licences will be suspended for one to 12 months and drivers fined 200 to 500 leva if their BAC exceeds 0.5mg per 100 milliliters of blood and up to 1.2mg per 100 millilitres of blood.
Refusing to take a breathalyser test will mean a licence suspension of either 12 months, 18 months or two years, and fines ranging from 500 leva to 1000 leva.
While EU nationals will now face the full extent of Bulgarian traffic laws, foreigners who do not possess an EU passport can still enjoy the lower-scale fines since their countries have not signed the Council of Europe convention.
Imposing severe penalties on road offenders has become a widely discussed public issue in Bulgaria because of the numerous road accidents happening each day. Statistics speak for themselves. A total of 1042 people died on Bulgarian roads in 2006, with 10 215 injured. In the first eight months of 2007, a total of 627 people were killed in road accidents, with 6166 injured.
