Expensive lawn: carsharing drivers face increased fines
Carsharing drivers parked on the lawn risk paying an amount ten times higher than the penalties for a similar offense committed in a private car, which may result from a decision by the Supreme Court. Experts and lawyers consider this verdict ambiguous. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
How it all started
In October 2022, in St. Petersburg, a carsharing car user parked a rental car on a lawn, thus violating traffic regulations. This misconduct was recorded by a camera operating in automatic mode. By a decision of the deputy head of the State Administrative and Technical Inspection (GATI), the carsharing operator was found guilty of the violation, since he is the owner of this vehicle. According to Article 32 of the St. Petersburg Law on Administrative Offenses, the company, as a legal entity, was fined 150,000 rubles for this offense.
The carsharing operator disagreed with the decision, considering that he "is not the subject of an imputed administrative offense, since at the time of photographing the violation, the vehicle was in use by another person." The firm tried to challenge GATI's ruling, first in the district and city courts of St. Petersburg, and then in the Third Court of Cassation of General Jurisdiction. The company provided information about which user violated the parking rules by leaving the car on the lawn.
On this basis, the company asked to cancel the fine imposed on it as a legal entity. If the courts had agreed with these arguments, the parking violation order would have been issued to the direct violator, the driver who was the last to rent a car for a short time. Since an individual would have been involved in this case, the fine was 5,000 rubles.
However, all three instances disagreed with the arguments of the carsharing operator and upheld GATI's decision. As a result, the company had to appeal to the Supreme Court (Supreme Court of the Russian Federation).
Why is the company to blame?
After reviewing the case materials, the judge of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation concluded that the lower authorities "did not violate the norms of the procedural law during the proceedings, the norms of substantive law were applied correctly."
According to the information provided by the carsharing operator specified in the case file, the rental session of the vehicle parked on the lawn was completed on October 31, 2022 at 7:50 a.m. At the same time, the violation itself was recorded by the camera only at 11:25 on the same day. The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation decided that the carsharing company "did not provide sufficient circumstances for the vehicle to be in the possession (use) of another person at the time of the administrative offense event."
The Supreme Court also recalled that, according to the legal position of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (resolution of June 25, 2019), when fixing an offense in the field of traffic by a technical means operating in automatic mode, the subject of such an offense is the owner (owner) of the vehicle, whether an individual or a legal entity.
"Actions of LLC (hereinafter referred to as the company name. — Ed.) are qualified in accordance with the established circumstances, the norms of the said Code [Administrative Code of the Russian Federation] and the legislation to be applied. The arguments of the complaint do not contain legal arguments that cast doubt on the legality and validity of the contested acts, and are aimed at a different assessment of the factual circumstances and evidence gathered during the proceedings," the Supreme Court said in a ruling.
Thus, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation decided to uphold the decision of the GATI and the verdicts of all lower instances and to dismiss the complaint of the carsharing operator.
Izvestia sent a request to the carsharing operator involved in the case.
According to the letter of the law
The Supreme Court's decision is ambiguous, according to experts interviewed by Izvestia. According to Sergey Radko, a lawyer for the Freedom of Choice movement, it complies with the letter of the law.
— When it comes to recording violations with a camera operating in automatic mode, a fine under current legislation is imposed on the owner of the vehicle. And since the owner in this case is a legal entity, sanctions are provided for both for a legal entity," he said.
In Moscow, a similar violation, according to the capital's Administrative Code, would have already cost 300 thousand rubles, the lawyer emphasized.
It is obvious that a car registered in a legal entity is driven by a specific driver, an individual, who commits this or that violation, says Maxim Kadakov, editor—in-chief of the Za Rulem newspaper. However, despite this, there is actually no mechanism for "retraining" violations.
—Apart from carsharing, drivers who drive a car registered with a company have recently found themselves in a similar situation if, for one reason or another, they did not pay for parking in Moscow or stayed longer than they were paid for,— he noted.
The Supreme Court is quite scrupulous about the nuances of "automotive" cases, but in this situation it made a fairly straightforward decision, said Anton Shaparin, vice President of the National Automobile Union (NAS).
— If the carsharing session was completed, and the violation was recorded before the start of a new rental session, then it is obvious that the user who last drove this car violated the rules. In this case, the court did not understand the logic and mechanisms of carsharing, " he told Izvestia.
A dangerous precedent
Most likely, the carsharing operator will try to demand that the driver who stands on the lawn reimburse the amount of the fine, Sergei Radko believes. However, taking into account the decision of the Supreme Court, the rental car user has a good chance to challenge these requirements.
— In fact, by its decision, the Supreme Court indicated that the facts presented by the company do not prove the driver's guilt. And, referring to this decision, the motorist may well challenge the claims made to him by the carsharing operator," Sergei Radko believes.
If the driver manages to challenge the demands from the carsharing company, this could become a dangerous precedent, the vice president of NAS believes. In this case, the already low culture of driving and parking for users of short-term car rental services will become even lower, Anton Shaparin believes.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
