Fines for exceeding the average speed do not end up with motorists for a year and a half. Due to legal inconsistencies and citizen dissatisfaction, the traffic police has decided to stop this practice.
But after amendments to the SDA and the Code of Administrative Violations, fines for exceeding the average speed on a long stretch of road may become the norm. We already wrote that only the term “average speed” itself has no legal force, while there is a method to determine the excess in documents that have weight. The gaps will soon be closed and the average speed measurements on road sections of several kilometers will return. Technically, this can be implemented even in cities with many intersections (a network of cameras can handle this simply by following your route). We must be prepared to challenge such fines.
Given the excesses on the ground (especially the installation of cameras in completely non-emergency places, with the provisional, as an option, the installation of an unreasonable speed sign), it can be assumed that many motorists will be fined.
Theory and practice
Let’s imagine a situation. A certain part of the road with different speed limits: it is possible to drive 90 km/h, somewhere it will be necessary to slow down to 70-60 km/h, and somewhere, near a zebra crossing, up to 20 km /u h. If you think that the problems in a math textbook about points A and B, from which cars drive towards each other, apply to life, then problems are inevitable. But what about the acceleration, braking, overtaking and meanness (you can’t call it anything else) from some of the overtaken individuals, who begin to accelerate at this crucial moment?
In short, the passage of such sections in real life has every chance of becoming an impassable quest, if, among other things, we allow excesses on the terrain. As an option – intentional traffic jams for the second camera, where drivers give themselves an edge. In addition, drivers will look less and less at the road and more at the speedometer, because they have to equalize the speed not only under the camera (if the navigator suggests it), but constantly. In fact, on free roads, motorists are now more often busy with a speedometer than with monitoring the road and its verge. But it can be called poetry. Let’s go back to how we’re going to challenge speeding tickets. There are a few pitfalls here.
Expert opinion
Andrey Moiseev, lawyer:
– An average speed trap has been applied on Russian roads since 2013, but in March-April 2021, the traffic police stopped using this method due to regulatory gaps. The reason for the decision of the traffic police is formal – when the controlled area crosses the boundaries of two different districts, the question arises to which court to appeal. Such uncertainty was the reason for the refusal of the traffic police to check the method of controlling the average speed. Although many experts and practicing lawyers say that the solution to this problem is on the surface and does not violate the law – to determine the territorial jurisdiction in the location of the second chamber. That is, where the controlled section of the road ends – after all, it is the second camera that detects the fact of speeding.
Of course, in practice there were also controlled areas within the same district, so the question “to which court to apply in case of an appeal against a fine” did not arise. Incidentally, such cases are rare. In the Moscow region, for example, in 2020 the percentage of decisions appealed was only 0.01% of the number issued. There is an interesting but controversial case in legal practice, which has received a lot of media attention. It was he who drew attention to the method of controlling the average speed. Motorist from the Smolensk . region reached the Supreme Court, who reportedly canceled the fine. However, this is not the case – the case was forwarded to the court for review, which again recognized the driver is at fault.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly explainedthat if an administrative violation was discovered using a special technical device operating in automatic mode, which has the functions of photography, the court there is no reason to doubt in the accuracy of the readings of the speed measuring device, which is a measuring instrument of an approved type that has passed the metrological verification and is approved for use.