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- Road safety check: Ministry of Transport proposes to tighten liability for foreign carriers
Road safety check: Ministry of Transport proposes to tighten liability for foreign carriers
The Ministry of Transport is working on amendments to the Administrative Code to more severely punish foreign carriers for violations of Russian rules, said Artem Sheikin, First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Construction, Senator from the Amur Region. It is planned to cancel preferential payment of fines for them and allow them to delay transport until violations are eliminated. Izvestia investigated the need for these changes and what other measures could reduce the number of violations.
The return of justice
The need to change legislation is due to the fact that in current practice, foreign carriers who commit violations on Russian roads, including exceeding weight and size standards, as well as non-payment of tolls and toll-free highways, often leave the country without fulfilling the obligation to pay fines, Artem Sheikin told Izvestia.
To prevent such situations, it is proposed to deprive foreign owners and drivers of vehicles of the opportunity to use a benefit that reduces the amount of the fine if it is paid within 20 days, he noted. In addition, it is planned to explicitly establish the right to detain vehicles under a number of administrative offenses until the identified violations are eliminated and administrative sanctions are fully repaid. This approach will make it possible to achieve de facto equality of responsibility for all market participants, regardless of the country of registration of the car.
At the same time, in his opinion, it is necessary to introduce more comprehensive measures aimed at reducing the total number of offenses in the field of transportation.
— It is planned to create a federal state information system for accounting debts in the field of motor transport, so that information about unpaid fines and other debts would be concentrated in a single database, — said the senator.
In addition, it is necessary to work out a single algorithm now, according to which, when leaving the territory of Russia, a vehicle of a foreign carrier will be checked for unpaid fines and, if found, departure should be prohibited until full payment, he stressed.
Unequal conditions
Russian road carriers operate in less favorable conditions compared to foreign companies, primarily from the EAEU countries and China, Vadim Filatov, Chairman of the Transport Logistics Committee of Delovaya Rossiya, told Izvestia. Since September 1, EAEU carriers have been allowed to cabot in Russia, which has already led to a reduction in tariffs in some regions to 10% due to lower costs for foreign companies.
The imbalance in the Russia-China direction is even more noticeable, the expert stressed. For example, Chinese carriers actively operate inland, while Russian carriers rarely move more than 50 km from the border due to high costs and weak demand. According to Avtogruzex, the cost of transportation in China is 33% lower: servicing one truck costs 624 thousand rubles per month against 936 thousand rubles in Russia with a mileage of 13 thousand km.
A significant role, according to him, is played by cheaper equipment (4.5 million rubles versus 6.5 million rubles), preferential leasing at 3-5% instead of 21-25%, lower repair and personnel costs, and a VAT rate of 9% versus 22%. In 2026, the cost of transportation for Russian companies may increase by another 12-14%, and taking into account the tax burden — up to 20%, which will widen the gap and reduce their competitiveness on international routes.
The same approach
Market participants have been discussing the need for stricter supervision of the activities of foreign carriers, primarily from China, for a long time, Dmitry Zavyalov, Dean of the Higher School of Economics and Business (Faculty) of Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, told Izvestia. In contrast, Russian transport companies are under constant control — in particular, they use video recording systems, weight and size checks, and other tools.
At the same time, automatic complexes work much worse in relation to foreign transport, he noted. Thus, interstate data exchange remains limited, foreign registration marks are not always correctly read, and subsequent collection of fines from foreign companies often proves ineffective.
— Market participants note that carriers from China sometimes undermine pricing by setting low tariffs for services and at the same time are in a mode of weaker administrative control. At the same time, Russian trucks can easily be detained at the Chinese border in case of violations until the fines are fully paid," the expert noted.
All this can potentially make foreign transportation more reliable and international trade more transparent, Dmitry Zavyalov emphasized.
Acceleration of control
The proposed changes are not aimed at creating less favorable conditions for foreign carriers compared to Russian companies, Dmitry Evdokimov, a researcher at the IPEI Presidential Academy's Research Center for Spatial Analysis and Regional Diagnostics, told Izvestia.
We are talking about eliminating gaps in the practice of applying the law, because of which, in some cases, foreign market participants actually avoided responsibility, the expert believes. Penalties were not enforced, and the transport continued to move, even when the identified violations raised safety issues or exceeding permissible loads.
The point of the adjustments, he said, is to make responsibility inevitable and equally effective for all carriers, without exceptions. This approach is directly related to improving road safety, protecting transport infrastructure and ensuring equal competitive conditions in the transportation market.
"In addition to tougher liability, digital control tools, faster document flow between departments, as well as mechanisms to ensure payment of fines for transit carriers at the border or through financial guarantees, such as deposits at entry, will have an effect," the expert believes.
The initiative looks extremely timely, since the current practice really needs to be adjusted, Andrei Zhukovsky, a leading researcher at the Institute of Regional Economics and Inter-Budgetary Relations at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation, told Izvestia. Often, foreign carriers or individuals find themselves in more favorable conditions due to the availability of a grace period.
Preventive measures should be considered as the key and most effective way to influence the situation on the road, he said. At the same time, it is important to build effective interstate cooperation that will allow detecting such violations and ensuring the inevitability of responsibility.
"Special attention should be paid to accelerating and expanding the exchange of information within the country, in particular between law enforcement agencies, customs and tax services, financial organizations, as well as regional authorities," Andrei Zhukovsky recalled.
Also, work on improving the synchronization of license plate databases should lead to the fact that cameras will better record violators on foreign vehicles, Olga Pozdnyakova, head of the People's Front, told Izvestia. Analytics".
"Now unscrupulous drivers use the partial "invisibility" of foreign license plates to drive on toll roads and park without paying, to exceed the weight parameters of cars without fines, and to carry out illegal cabotage," she noted.
Izvestia sent requests to the Ministry of Transport and Rostransnadzor, but no responses had been received at the time of publication.
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