New fines for drunk driving: what honest drivers should be afraid of

It happened: MPs voted to increase the penalties for drinking and driving. The fines are considerable by Ukrainian standards. Moreover, drunk drivers now face criminal liability. GolosUA decided to find out how the innovation will affect the driving culture of Ukrainians and what law-abiding motorists should fear.

In November, parliamentarians supported the draft law No. 7279-d "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Simplifying Pre-trial Investigation of Certain Categories of Criminal Offenses," which, among other things, provides for an increase in fines for driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs, and medicines.

According to the provisions of the law, a driver caught driving drunk will face a fine of 1,000 to 2,000 tax-free minimum incomes, or UAH 17,000 to 34,000. In addition to the fine, the driver's license will be revoked for 3 years.

If the motorist repeats the offense, he will have to pay UAH 51 thousand (3,000 tax-free minimum incomes) to the treasury, and he will lose his license for 2-3 years.

In addition, drunken driving now falls under criminal liability, as MPs decided to criminalize Article 13 of the Code of Administrative Violations as part of the new law.

Previously, drunk drivers were punished with a fine of UAH 10.2 thousand for the first offense and deprived of their license for a year. In the case of a repeat offense within 5 years, the fine increased to UAH 40.2 thousand, and the license was taken away for 10 years. Now this is a thing of the past: the new law will come into force in about 3 months. That means drivers don't have much time left to reconsider their bad habits. Although, as experts say, draconian measures can't always make a positive difference.

"Increasing fines does not usually lead to increased driver responsibility and a reduction in drunk driving. These are one-sided measures. This problem needs to be addressed comprehensively by preventing these offenses, strengthening the role of punishment in the form of community service, thematic classes in schools and widespread social advertising. As the experience of other countries shows, this is the way to successfully combat drunk driving," says lawyer Rostylav Kravets.

Viktor Medvid, director of William Invest Expert, a consulting company, sees sense in increasing fines and supports the deprivation of driving licenses for the first drunken driving offense.

"Drunk driving causes many accidents in Ukraine. The statistics are growing - more and more accidents happen for this very reason. It is clear that some people have cars for 2 million hryvnias, while others have cars for 20 thousand. But everyone should be equal here, regardless of whether you have or don't have these conditional UAH 51 thousand," he said.

Commenting on the innovation, experts also say that equating drunk drivers with criminals will create a whole class of people with a criminal record who will be closed to professional opportunities. If, for example, a person convicted of drunken driving wants to get a job in government agencies, he or she is unlikely to succeed. The same applies to the private sector in many ways.

Experts point out that the MPs, having tightened the legislation, did not take care to strengthen the protection of the rights of law-abiding drivers, as there are frequent cases of fraud and banal mistakes on the part of patrol officers.

They also assume that after the introduction of new fines, the "tariffs" of patrol officers who practice bribery will increase many times over.

Meanwhile, the situation on Ukrainian roads is frightening: on average, up to 10 Ukrainians die in road accidents every day. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, over 122,000 road accidents occurred in the first ten months of this year, killing 2,651 people.

In general, as the police admit, about 130 thousand Ukrainians are caught driving drunk a year.

Due to a surge in bloody accidents, the government has given the go-ahead to bring back handheld radars, which had a controversial reputation during the days of the traffic police. Now, patrol police are armed with TruCAM speed cameras, among other things.

The full-scale launch of the system of automatic photo and video recording of traffic violations is not far off.

The new measures should, according to the Interior Ministry, reduce road deaths by 50% and discipline drivers.