Driving instructors from all Bulgaria protested on May 8 against the new regulations set in the Road Traffic Act, which will be implemented starting July 2008.

“The driving lessons will hike to more than 1000 leva after the transition period expires in July 2008 for the new regulations 37 and 38 from the Road Traffic Act, implemented on January 1 2008,” driving instructor and a Sofia auto school owner Stefan Malkovski said during the protest, Focus news agency reported.

The protest started at the beginning of Tsarigradsko Shousse Boulevard in Sofia and proceeded to Alexander Nevski Cathedral, where the driving instructors planned to remain up until 5.30pm.

According to the protesters, there is no European requirement that forces implementation of new rules. They said small part of the driving instructors created both new texts. Those people wanted to monopolise the business of the driving schools.

The protesters said that they filed a lawsuit, which was scheduled to be heard by the Supreme Administrative Court in Sofia and on May 26. The main reason for the driving instructors’ discontent is that the new requirements would impede their activities and will make the driving courses more expensive without improving the training quality.

They said that the driving lessons’ price would reach 1000 leva, which would lead to bankruptcy of the smaller companies because they would not have enough customers. According to the driving instructors, this was the hidden goal of the new regulations.

Ivan Velev, a driving instructor from Blagoevgrad, said that 90 per cent of his colleagues did not approve the new regulations. According to him, the protesters expected the most striking parts of the new regulations to be changed, such as the requirement a driving course to start only on an even Monday. The instructors are also against the requirement that their study rooms and offices to be in the same building, and against the new rule to also appoint a technical worker.

The regulations that already came into force contain inflated requirements for offices maintenance, equipping the study rooms with multimedia and options for computer simulations, as well as a requirement for having two permanent positions: technical employee and head of the study activities, Bulgarian-language daily Dnevnik reported on May 7.