You weren't here: the CAO may be amended on parking lots

A bill has been submitted to the State Duma for consideration which would reduce the list of traffic violations for which a car is evacuated to an impound lot. In particular, this measure is to be abandoned in cases where a driver has forgotten his car documents. Lawyers and experts consider this initiative logical. Details - in the material "Izvestia".

Evacuation for the forgetful

Forgotten car documents by the driver in the future will not be the basis for the evacuation of the car to the parking lot. This is provided by amendments to the CAO RF, which are submitted to the State Duma. The corresponding draft law is published in the system of ensuring the legislative activity of the Parliament.

Current legislation (part 1 of article 27.13 of the CAO RF) provides for almost two dozen violations of traffic rules, allowing to apply detention of a vehicle and its placement in a parking lot as an interim measure. Along with improper parking, drunk driving and the presence in the car of malfunctions in which its operation is prohibited (for example, defects in the brake and steering systems), one of the grounds is the driver's lack of documents for the vehicle. The amendments propose to exclude this violation from the grounds for evacuation of the car, except when it is listed as stolen.

"Obviously, the driver's lack of documents on the vehicle, if there actually are any, does not affect the safety of road traffic, and the placement of the vehicle in a specialized parking lot is associated with additional difficulties both for the owner of the vehicle and for employees who decide to impose such a measure of administrative penalty", - stated in the explanatory note to the document.

At the same time, in case the driver has no driver's license or insurance policy (provided that these documents are actually available), the legislation does not provide for detention of the vehicle and its evacuation to a parking lot. For these violations, only a warning or a fine of 500 rubles is provided.

According to the author of the amendments, the head of the State Duma Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans' Affairs Yaroslav Nilov, now the simple forgetfulness of even law-abiding drivers turns into the evacuation of the vehicle to the parking lot.

- Why tow a car if it is not stolen? If the driver has no documents for the car, it can be detained only in case of electronic theft. We need to live with modern opportunities, - said the parliamentarian.

Everything is checked

Experts and lawyers consider the proposed amendments to the CAO fair and logical. According to the lawyer of the movement "Freedom of Choice" Sergei Radko, in modern conditions the requirement to always carry the documents on the car in "physical" form looks at least outdated.

- Perhaps 15-20 years ago, this reason for evacuating a car was relevant: theoretically, it allowed to counteract thefts. Now, when a police officer has an opportunity to find out all the information about both the car and the driver in a couple of minutes using databases, the reason for detaining a car if the motorist does not have documents for it looks like a relic of the past," he told Izvestia.

Moreover, the lawyer considers unnecessary and the rule proposed in the bill on the detention of the vehicle, if it is stolen.

- If police officers have information that a car is wanted because of theft or for some other reason, they are obliged to detain it, regardless of whether the driver has documents for the car or not," said Sergei Radko.

Valery Soldunov, a member of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, chairman of the All-Russian Society of Motorists, noted that today the requirement to detain a vehicle when the motorist does not have documents on it is unfair and illogical.

The initiative of thedeputy is supported by Igor Morzharetto, a member of the Presidium of the Public Council under the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. According to him, the absence of a driver's license and car documents are essentially the same offenses. However, in one case the law is limited only to a warning or a fine, while in the other case the driver will have to pay for the evacuation of the car, as well as spend his time on its recovery from the parking lot.

- Obviously, this is unfair. Anyone can forget his documents at home, leave them in another jacket. This is no reason to make him spend half a day running around impound lots looking for his car, and even pay for the towing. Russia is actively going through a process of digitalization, any information about the car can be easily checked. However, there are still some anachronisms in the legislation that need to be removed," the expert believes.

According to him, in a number of countries drivers are advised not to carry their car registration documents with them at all, but "to put them in a drawer so that they are not suddenly lost".

Stealing while sleeping

Maxim Kadakov, editor-in-chief of Za Rulem magazine, is ambivalent about the proposed amendments. From the point of view of motorists, this initiative is certainly correct, he believes. At the same time, the current procedure in some cases allows law enforcement agencies to ensure the safety of the car when it has been stolen, but the owner does not know about the theft and did not have time to report it to the police

- Of course, the absence of documents on the car does not affect the safety of road traffic. And, on the one hand, it is probably wrong to detain the car in this case. But let's imagine that the car was stolen while its owner was sleeping, accordingly, the car is not wanted. Now, if in such a situation the car is stopped by traffic police, the car will be evacuated to a parking lot and the owner will not lose his property. If the proposed amendments are adopted, then in such a situation traffic police officers will have no grounds to detain the vehicle until the police receive a report of theft," Maxim Kadakov told Izvestia.