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- That's the number: drivers of cars receive fines of up to 600 thousand because of trucks
That's the number: drivers of cars receive fines of up to 600 thousand because of trucks
Car drivers receive fines of up to 600 thousand due to abuse by truck drivers. They use stand-in numbers to avoid responsibility for overloading or overstretching, as a result of which decisions come to innocent car owners. It is difficult to challenge fines: Rostransnadzor does not yet have the same effective appeal system as in the traffic police, and victims have to cancel decisions through the courts, experts say. At the same time, the service itself claims that if there is a passenger car in the photo, then no decision is made against its owner. According to experts, the problem is growing, as in 2025, electronic scales started working automatically on almost all regional routes, and truckers plying with violations began to come up with tricks to avoid punishment. About how fake license plates can harm ordinary motorists and whether this problem can be solved — in the Izvestia article.
Why are heavy fines issued for passenger cars?
Fines from Rostransnadzor of up to 600 thousand rubles for overweight by several tons or exceeding the size began to be received by car drivers. This is due to a fraudulent scheme used by truck owners. Before arriving at the weighing stations, they put up duplicate numbers, which often match the registration plates of passenger cars. As a result, fines are received by completely outsider ordinary car owners.
— Number duplication is the repetition of real registration plates from another car from other regions of the country. They are used to falsely identify trucks at automatic weight and size control points. Fraudulent carriers shift their real fines to law-abiding car owners," the head of the Traffic Jams expert center told Izvestia.no," lawyer Alexander Shumsky.
The fine from the APVGK sometimes reaches 600 thousand rubles. An ordinary citizen, of course, cannot pay for it and is trying to challenge the penalty, but receives letters from Rostransnadzor, and there are not always funds to initiate legal proceedings. As a result, the appeal period expires, and Rostransnadzor gets the right to collect money from debtors through bailiffs, the lawyer noted.
A similar case occurred with a motorist from Omsk. In May, his Chevrolet Lacetti station wagon received an administrative order from Rostransnadzor. Izvestia has reviewed the document. The passenger car is named in it as a six-axle road train with a height of 4.79 m and fined 600 thousand rubles for transporting bulky cargo exceeding the limit values by 0.79 m. Attached to the resolution is a photograph of a Kenwort T200 mainline tractor hood.
"My appeals to Rostransnadzor did not yield anything, although the absurdity of the decision is obvious," Stepan Bekreev, a motorist who suffered from fraud, told Izvestia. — The truck in the photo is not a small Lacetti at all, and its license plate has traces of forgery: there is a seam from the gluing. This road train was transporting cargo with a violation on the Surgut–Salekhard road, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, near Nadym, and I live in Omsk, that is, 2 thousand km from it.
According to the victim, in order to appeal the ruling, he was offered to go to Tver, that is, to the regional office that issued the ruling. And in response to the remote appeal, I received an offer to go to court.
"The court overturned the ruling, but it took a lot of effort and involved a lawyer," Alexander Shumsky continues. — Similar cases are recorded when passing toll roads with the "Free Flow" system.
In 2024-2025, the number of cases of concealment or duplication of numbers during the passage of the APVGK has increased significantly, Mikhail Koptev, commercial director of the Skif-Cargo transport company, told Izvestia.
"After the expansion of the APVGC network (there are more than 400 of them in the country) and tougher fines, some unscrupulous carriers are trying to "cheat" the system by using plastic plates on signs, replacement plates or duplicates of the numbers of other cars," he added.
The APVGC camera correctly reads the fake number installed on the tractor, but the system is unable to recognize that this registration plate in the traffic police database is registered for a conditional passenger car, and not for a 40-ton truck, Eduard Mironov, Director of procurement of transport services at FM Logistic in Russia, told Izvestia. According to him, such forgeries are more often recorded in the Urals and Siberia.
Mikhail Koptev believes that the economy of transportation provokes fraud. Transport workers operate on a minimal margin, and overweight (especially when exporting bulk, agricultural or construction goods) becomes a way to earn more. And when fines from APVGK became massive, some market participants began to defend themselves against them.
— It is difficult to catch them by the hand on the spot, since Rostransnadzor and the Ministry of Internal Affairs rarely monitor the process of passing the APVGK, these points operate automatically. After passing through the checkpoint, truckers remove duplicates and return their original registration plates," Vladimir Matyagin, president of the Gruzavtotrans Association, told Izvestia.
The fine for overweight (art. 12.21.1 of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation) reaches 400-600 thousand rubles, and for driving with fake license plates for individuals — 2.5 thousand rubles and deprivation of rights. It is this disproportionality of punishment that gives rise to the desire of dishonest carriers to save money by shifting risks to others, says Eduard Mironov.
Izvestia sent requests to the Ministry of Transport. In Rostransnadzor, Izvestia was told that when monitoring the rules of movement of heavy and oversized vehicles, their photographs are examined in an act received from the owner of the road. If there is a passenger car in the photo, then no decision is made against the owner of this vehicle. If there is a fine, it is subject to cancellation upon appeal to the body that issued the decision.
How to protect yourself from duplicate numbers
The main reasons for the problem are failures in the work of the APVGC and the short deadline for filing a complaint, which is 10 days from the date of receipt of the resolution, Vadim Filatov, president of the Avtogruzex Association, deputy director of the PEC, told Izvestia.
— Many APVGKS weigh transport incorrectly. Even a bona fide carrier, knowing that he is traveling without overloading, is not immune from a half—million dollar ruling, and it is extremely difficult to prove the impropriety of weighing on appeal," Andrey Greenwald, head of the GLT road safety department, told Izvestia. — Therefore, many small carriers resort to such illegal measures.
It is difficult to find a carrier with fake numbers. Law enforcement agencies do this in the framework of criminal cases, and the proceedings on fake phone numbers relate to administrative practice, the expert notes.
The APVGC systems and Rostransnadzor databases are still imperfect: they do not perform an elementary "reconciliation" of the vehicle type, ignoring the glaring discrepancy (a passenger car cannot physically weigh 40 tons), said Eduard Mironov from FM Logistic.
In addition, unlike the traffic police, Rostransnadzor does not have a well-established, accessible and fast online appeal mechanism. While the citizen is trying to get to the regional office, the decree quickly goes to the bailiffs, and his accounts are blocked, the expert added.
— The solution to the problem must be comprehensive, — says Mikhail Koptev. — For example, it can be the integration of the APVGC with the databases of the traffic police and ABC "Safe City", so that the automatic check takes into account the VIN, color and body type of the car, and the fine is not tied to the number without comparing with the vehicle parameters.
In addition, a fast digital procedure for appealing penalties through "Public Services" is needed, similar to the one implemented by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, he believes.
According to Mikhail Koptev, it would also be worthwhile to consider stricter liability for the use of duplicates and fake registration plates, up to criminal liability, and introduce RFID tags on license plates, which would make it impossible to use "copies."
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