Green-coloured special numbers for the cars of officials, deputies and senators can be introduced in Russia. An author of the initiative, United Russia deputy Alexander Vasilyev believes that the coloured number plate will make the public servants and deputies act more carefully on the roads and will make the road police give a closer attention to the car owners.
The introduction of this measure will not require any amendments in the legislation, a relevant decree of the Russian Interior Ministry will be enough, the Novye Izvestia daily cited Vasilyev as saying. The deputy has already sent his proposals to Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev. “The number of road accident is growing, the low culture of the drivers working in the state agencies is among the reasons for the road accidents,” the document runs. “The participation of the drivers of the state-run organizations in such road accidents is aggravated by the fact that the punishment for them is just the formality often, because they exert pressure on the road police from the state officials. I find it necessary to ponder over the possibility to introduce special numbers (for instance, white letters on the green background) for a better identification of the cars of the public servants in the traffic,” the document stated.
The Russian Federation of Motorists does not believe that the green-coloured numbers will make “the masters of life” observe the traffic rules. “There will be no excessive requirements to them from the road police. They do not already have an opportunity to impose sanctions against this caste and will not get such an opportunity with the introduction of the green numbers,” leader of the Russian Federation of Motorists Sergei Kanayev said with confidence.
The newspaper recalled that now the numbers of five different colours exist on the Russian roads: red numbers belong to the diplomatic missions and the trading offices of foreign countries, blue numbers to the Interior Ministry, black numbers to the Defence Ministry, yellow numbers – taxi and white numbers are all other types of vehicles.
The Moskovsky Komsomolets daily noted that Vasilyev’s colleague in the faction, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee for Constitutional Legislation Vyacheslav Lysakov did not find it expedient to make the numbers of the cars of public servants green. “All drivers should bear equal responsibility for violations of the road traffic rules, and the cars of the state officials should not be singled out,” he said.