Fines Can Be Appealed Online: What Will Change For Drivers?

2023 Author: Natalie MacDonald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-11-26 13:59

The registration of fines for traffic violations most often occurs without the participation of drivers - according to the data from the cameras, but you have to challenge the erroneous decisions personally, collecting evidence of your innocence. However, in the fall of 2021, the appeal procedure should be simplified: in September, a functionality will appear on the State Services website that allows you to appeal fines online. We figure out how this will help the drivers and what other ways they have to avoid punishment.

What happened

At the end of last year, the State Duma adopted in the third and final reading a bill that introduces a single mechanism for appealing fines for the whole country - online, using the appropriate functionality of the State Services portal. The new service should be launched on September 1, 2021.

The project was even supported by the Chairman of the State Duma Viacheslav Volodin: "This will save citizens from the need to personally apply to the authorized bodies and make the application procedure more accessible, since it is sometimes easier for a driver to pay a fine than to spend his time filling out papers in a subdivision."

What will it give

First of all, this will save you from the need to spend time filling out paperwork, searching for the organization that issued the fine, and running around in instances. And in general, it will return at least some logic to the appeal procedure. Before, if the decision came from another region, it often made no sense to appeal it, because the cost of the road exceeded the amount of the fine.

In addition, drivers who tried to appeal against the decisions often sent them to the wrong addressee, being confused about who exactly wrote out the punishment. For example, it is not the traffic police, but other municipal organizations that are involved in unpaid parking and evacuation of incorrectly parked cars in cities. And it is sometimes very difficult to find out which of them issued the fine.

The new service should become a universal tool for appealing all types of violations. "The adoption of the bill will also allow the country to establish a uniform procedure for appealing against penal orders, regardless of who issued it - the traffic police or a specialized institution," Volodin explained.

What fines can be appealed online

As now, it will be possible to file a complaint against any protocol, which, in the driver's opinion, was drawn up with an error or does not prove the guilt of a particular person. But, first of all, new functionality is being created to combat the errors of automatic cameras, which are becoming more and more on the roads. And also with fines that drivers receive due to fraudulent actions with the substitution of license plates.

Cameras sometimes issue fines to cars standing on tow trucks (a violation is committed by a tow truck, and a fine is issued to the owner of a broken car), they make mistakes in determining the speed or trajectory of the car, and when the seat belts are not fastened and when a mobile phone is used while driving, they often incorrectly interpret the resulting picture. Sometimes motorists in traffic are fined for illegal or unpaid parking. And the owners of cars, whose license plates are illegally used by someone on other cars, are completely unprotected.

In theory, all photographic materials received from cameras should be carefully examined by employees of relevant departments and the traffic police, but practice shows that errors still occur during continuous operation. Complaints filed in a new way will be considered substantively, and there will be more chances of catching errors in them.

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But the traffic police already has an electronic reception …

Indeed, there is an electronic reception on the traffic police website, which allows you to send an appeal to a specific unit. The problem is that this service was created specifically for appeals, and not for appealing fines. Therefore, on-site inspectors are not required to review erroneous decisions. In addition, the service accepts requests in any form, but motorists are far from always able to correctly draw up a claim. In the case of the State Services service, the application process will be standardized and "sharpened" specifically for the appeal of fines.

How can you appeal a fine now

Firstly, it is worth remembering that you can appeal the fine only within 10 days from the moment you receive a copy of the decree. Secondly, you will have to go to the place where the decree was written out. For example, in Moscow, in addition to the traffic police, fines for violation of parking rules are imposed by the Moscow Administrative Road Inspectorate (MADI) and the state institution Administrator of the Moscow Parking Space (AMPP), and in the regions, parking can be administered by local organizations.

To appeal the fines issued by the traffic police, you need to submit a written complaint to the territorial unit at the place of the violation in the name of a specific inspector or his boss, attaching copies of documents for the car and the decree itself. If you don't want to go to the department, then the documents can be sent by registered mail, but in this case there is a risk of missing the appeal deadline - you will also have to ask for the restoration of the deadline.

In Moscow, there is also a separate Center for Automated Recording of Administrative Offenses of the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, which receives all data from traffic cameras - it is he who sends orders from cameras to drivers, and he will also cancel the erroneous recording. But again you need to go there personally.

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How to deal with parking tickets

In Moscow, you need to appeal fines for unpaid parking at AMPP or MADI, and the latter organization is also in charge of car parking lots - evacuation can also be challenged even after payment. In St. Petersburg, this is the responsibility of the City Center for Parking Lot Management. And all these organizations accept appeals and complaints in person, by mail or electronically.

The easiest way to appeal a parking fine in Moscow is on the state portal Avtokod, which can itself determine by the number of the decree which organization to send a complaint to, and contains ready-made appeal schemes, a list of reasons for it and lists of necessary documents. In St. Petersburg, there is a citywide service for receiving applications, which can also be used for complaints about the parking inspection.

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How it will be possible to appeal against fines for driving without compulsory motor third party liability insurance

Nobody has seen real decisions with fines for driving without compulsory motor third party liability so far, but the authorities have been frightening for a couple of years now that cameras are about to start recording this type of violations as well. Those who still receive such a fine, having a valid valid policy in their hands, will first of all need to contact their insurer to correct the inaccuracies in the database. Or immediately in the PCA, where they will tell you exactly how to proceed. And only after correcting all the "jambs" does it make sense to appeal the fine.

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