The first reading of a draft bill on amendments to the Road Traffic Act was approved by Parliament on January 17.
Reporting from Parliament, Bulgarian news agency BTA said that the draft bill envisages higher fines for serious breaches of the law that lead to severe road accidents. The amount of the fines will depend on by how much the speed limit has been exceeded. For example, for a populated area such as a city, town or a village, a driver exceeding the speed limit by 10 km/h will have to pay a fine of 10 leva. For more serious speeding, drivers will face much more serious sanctions. Drivers who exceed the speed limit by more than 51 km/h will be fined 250 leva and their driving licences will be suspended for three months. Outside of populated areas, the fines will be 10 leva for exceeding the limit by 10 km/h and 200 leva and three months suspension from driving for speeding by more than 51km/h. Moreover, for motor vehicles transporting people, or carrying hazardous loads, the fine will be up to 400 leva and again, a three-month driving licence suspension. For less serious breaches of law the fines will be 50 leva. Under the current version of the law, speeding carries a fine of five leva if the excess is less than 20 km/h, 10 leva for an excess of 20 to 30 km/h, 20 leva for 30 to 40 km/h, 30 leva for 40 to 50 km/h, and 70 leva for speeding of over 50 km/h. The idea of the revisions is to meet the targets set in the European Road Safety Action Programme, BTA said.
Other proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Act include one saying that where a fine is 50 leva or less, it may be paid on the spot directly to the traffic police officer. Should the driver prefer to pay the fine straight away, rather than at his/her local municipality, no points will be deducted from the driver's record. Currently, traffic police are not allowed to collect any road fines, so as to avoid opportunities for corruption. Drivers were required to pay fines at their municipality within six months of the ticket being issued. If the payment was not made by this deadline, the fine was automatically added to the taxes to be paid to the state. But so far this system has not been very efficient. Few people go to pay their fines, while the system of collecting fines through the tax system has proved problematic, causing losses of revenue.
The proposals have come in for criticism. Ivan Ivanov of right-wing opposition party Democrats for Strong Bulgaria said that higher fines would not change the driving culture, but would mean even fewer fines were collected. Opportunities for direct payments to police would mean opportunities for corruption, he said.
The amendments to the Road Traffic Act envisage a number of other changes. Each Bulgarian driver will be required to have in the boot of his car a reflective safety vest, first aid kit, fire extinguisher, spare pair of lamps for any lighting device inside and outside of the vehicle, and a spare tyre. The draft bill also calls for child safety seats and abolishes the possibility for two or more children of up to seven years, or one of up to 14, to sit in the back seats where there are no safety devices.
