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The State Duma, the road police discussed a tougher punishment for violations of the traffic rules

LDPR deputy Sergei Ivanov offered to confiscate the vehicles from the violators

On Tuesday, September 25, the State Duma Committee for Constitutional Legislation and the top brass of the road police have discussed a possible tougher punishment to the violators of the traffic rules. LDPR deputy Sergei Ivanov offered to confiscate the vehicles from the violators. The police have put forward the similar initiative on Wednesday.

The RBC daily reported that Sergei Ivanov proposed in a bill to add to an article of the Code of Administrative Offences that relates to drunk driving with the compulsory confiscation of a vehicle, which a drunk violator was driving.

The Novye Izvestia daily reported that other deputies have the same radical initiatives. For instance, Chairperson of the State Duma Committee for Security and Counteraction to Corruption Irina Yarovaya proposed to bring to criminal responsibility the drivers, who were previously stripped of a driving license for drunk driving and detained again behind the wheel regardless their condition. The sanctions for the road accidents, in which more than two people were killed and for which the drunk driver is responsible for, should be made equal to deliberate murder and is punished with 15 years in prison or life imprisonment.

The Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily reported that, according to head of the Russian road police Viktor Nilov, the number of the drunk driving accidents in Russia is on the decline from year to year. Just several years ago the drunk driving was exposed in each 4th-5th road accident, now in about each 13th road accident. Nilov noted that this tendency does not cancel the need to fight with this blatant evil. But in general the top road police officer believes that nothing can be done with some drivers driving without a driving license after they had been stripped of a driving license for drunk driving. Nilov noted that he has no ready receipts, and therefore he has made several proposals for debates. For instance, he offered to make total tests for the alcohol in the blood on the roads and in the streets. He also proposed to introduce higher insurance fees for the drunk drivers caught red-handed.

The Rossiiskaya Gazeta daily reported that deputy head of the Russian road police Vladimir Kuzin proposed to the deputies to provide the driver with an opportunity to bring the driving license back to him. First, a mistake can be found that a person can challenge in the court. Secondly, a person should be given a chance for improvement. Kuzin noted that the drivers stripped of their driving licenses should drive with a temporary driving license and only on the cars, which are equipped with drunk driving ignition locks, which prevent a drunk driver from starting up the car. However, those drivers, who were stripped of a driving license, but are driving again in the state of drunkenness, should not have this opportunity.

The Moskovsky Komsomolets daily reported that first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee for Constitutional Legislation Vyacheslav Lysakov recalled that a bill, which permits the reconciliation of the litigating parties, only if an injured person survived, has already been moved in the State Duma. “The relatives should not be provided with the right to decide for the road accident victim, whether he or she is ready to pardon the culprit of the road accident for money,” he noted. Lysakov raised again the issue to cancel the ‘zero pro mille’ rule. If to set the permitted alcohol content at 0.2 pro mille, as it was done in Norway, the deputy noted that “this will make it possible to separate sheep from goats, drunk drivers from drivers found drunk.”

The Komsomolskaya Gazeta daily noted that Vladimir Putin acknowledged that the punishments for drunk driving should be toughened. “Certainly, we will have to toughen the legislation in this sphere,” the president said at a meeting of the Russian Presidential Council of Culture and Arts. “It is necessary just to punish for some offences. Unfortunately, this cannot be another way round. If not to do so, such tragedies will occur everywhere,” Putin underlined.