On February 16, the Verkhovna Rada passed a bill in the second reading that would significantly increase penalties for drivers who drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol. There are also provisions to increase fines for pedestrians and for not letting cars with special signals, such as ambulances and rescue vehicles, pass on the road. The document has not yet been signed by the president, and it has not yet been published. In this regard, during the press conference, expert lawyers analyzed the new rules and discussed how effective they will be.
Legal experts agreed that if the law comes into force, it will be necessary to reform the system that will prove drivers' guilt in case of an administrative violation. Currently, there is a presumption of guilt against drivers in our country, and even refusal to undergo a medical examination for a number of personal reasons is already considered an administrative violation.
Lawyer Ihor Serkov emphasized that despite the fact that fines have been raised regularly over the past few years, there has been no tendency to reduce the number of accidents. The only thing that the human rights activist believes is positive about this draft law is the increased penalties for driving under the influence of alcohol and for not letting emergency vehicles (ambulances and rescuers - ed.) through.
"I think it is wrong to give police officers such powers, to assess whether they are right or wrong with such fines. We need to change all the conditions: the behavior of drivers, the conditions for recruiting police officers to the patrol police, road infrastructure, and so on."
It should be noted that the provisions that drivers actively opposed and law enforcement officials insisted on, namely, inspection of cars without a reason and handing over driver's licenses to patrol inspectors, were excluded from the final version of the bill prepared for the second reading. But the final text of the document is still unknown until it is published.
Vadym Volodarskyi, an accident lawyer, notes: "This is the most radical increase in fines for driving under the influence of alcohol, in my opinion, it will not lead to any significant result at all. Why? Let's imagine a person who drives while intoxicated. He can do this for two reasons. Either he is in a state where he does not really understand what he is doing and what the consequences may be. Or, for one reason or another, he expects that he will not be held liable. Or that he will not be stopped, or that he will hide from the police, or that he will pay off, and so on." According to the expert, in this case, the amount of the fine does not matter to the driver. He will still get behind the wheel and drive. And the decrease in the number of drunk drivers does not correlate with the amount of the fine, which has been increasing over the past few years. And it's almost impossible to make a dramatic impact on the situation in this way.
The lawyer said that in Ukraine, it is quite common for patrol police officers to draw up protocols for drunken driving completely unreasonably. In such cases, drivers perceive the fine as a lottery or, as Vadym Volodarsky emphasized, "as a tax for driving on the roads." "Therefore, such measures as unilateral expansion of police powers, unilateral increase of fines, without ensuring the real right to defense in case of unreasonable suspicions, cannot improve the situation on the roads in any way," Vadym Volodarsky summarized.
Viktor Medvid, director of William Invest Expert Consulting Company, said that this draft law was important for the Ministry of Internal Affairs because it increases the profitability of the Ministry. The main task of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is to increase state budget revenues. In fact, the law fulfills a fiscal role. "The second issue is the disproportionality of the evidence. When there were preliminary amounts, it would have been possible to leave the procedure for proving guilt as it was. Now, when these amounts are already quite substantial, the form of proof of guilt in the offense of intoxication is disproportionate to the amounts of fines. In other words, there is a presumption of guilt. In fact, a law enforcement officer does not need to prove a person's guilt. Instead, they can simply hold the driver accountable by referring to the fact that he or she refused to be tested. Therefore, the procedure of proof should be more clearly defined in this case."
As for the increase in fines for pedestrians, experts believe that the rule is very appropriate. Because pedestrians often abuse their right of way. And they often cause serious accidents. But, given the general carelessness of our country's residents, this is unlikely to encourage them to behave responsibly on the road.
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