Revoking driving license for backing up in the “no traffic” sign area

10 February 2012

The Supreme Court of Russia considered all nuances dealing with various violations of Traffic Rules, including backing up at one-way streets. The Supreme Court made the following ruling: backing up in the one-way street in the area, where the «no traffic» traffic sign is valid should involve penalty of revoking the driving license for a term of 6 month or a fine in amount of 5 thousand rubles.

Last year the Supreme Court of Russia was commissioned by the letter from the State Traffic Police of the Russian Federation to provide official explanations as to how to construe ambiguous situations dealing with violations of the Traffic Rules. Various inconsistencies occurred when the changes were introduced into the Code of Administrative Violations. As the practice shows, one of these inconsistencies involves construing the Traffic Rules when a car is backing up in a one-way street.

Backing up is a relatively frequent violation of the Traffic Rules. This maneuver is considered one of the most risky for the drivers to take. It can result either in hitting a pedestrian, or collision with another car. The maneuver is addressed in the Traffic Rules in several line items. This maneuver can be accomplished, if it does not create an obstacle for other participants of the road traffic. It is prohibited at road crossings, in the areas of pedestrian crossings, in tunnels, on the bridges and under the bridges and overpasses, on the rail crossings, in the areas having poor visibility, next to the public transportation stops and on the highways. This allows making the conclusion that the Traffic Rules do not prohibit backing up at one-way streets. And this creates the ambiguity. If a driver is backing up from the road and makes the turn to the one-way street, then in certain occasions, the violator is fined for backing up crossroad crossing for only 100 rubles. In other situations, the same violation results in 5000 ruble fine as it is construed as backing up in zone where “non-traffic” sign is active.

The Highest court reviewed all situations that often occurred under traffic conditions, which were construed in different manner in the regional courts. The ruling of the Supreme Court was meant to resolve the loophole. If a driver was moving along the one-way street in front of the zone where “no traffic” sign is active, no violation of the Traffic Rules occurred. But if the same driver backed up and entered the “no traffic” sign zone, then the driver seriously violated the provisions of the legislation which will result in revoking the driving license for 6 months or paying a fine in amount of 5 thousand rubles.

Now, when similar situation occurs on the roads everything will be crystal clear: both for the violator and for the Traffic Police inspector and for the court. In this situation, there will be no ambiguity and decision will be taken in the most precise manner.

Also the plenary session of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation provided explanations to other ambiguous issues which dealt both with Traffic Police inspectors and judges that worked on cases dealing with administrative violations in the traffic domain. These issues deal with ambiguous aspects such as automatic video recording of violations, driving a vehicle without driving license or drunk driving, driving a vehicle without license plates or with license plates that are not correctly installed. In the past there were often arguments stirred on how the situation should be judged when a driver is driving an automobile which has only one license plate and the second license plate is missing or installed not in proper manner, or the license plate is shaded by some car appliances. Now everything became transparent and unambiguous: these situations should be considered as belonging to Part 2 of Article 12.2 of Administrative Offences Code of the Russian Federation resulting in issuing a fine ticket in amount of 5000 rubles or revoking the driving license for the term ranging from 1 to 3 months.

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