Legal Response Measures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia to the Violations of Road Traffic Rules

The State Audit Office studied the legal response measures implemented by the relevant structural units of the Ministry against the violations of road traffic rules, namely, the issues related to the detection of cases of violations of road traffic rules, imposition of corresponding sanctions, submission of penalty charge notices to the offenders and collection of the sanctions imposed.

Audit has revealed certain systemic deficiencies:

Problems and deficiencies existing in terms of detection of violations

Territorial coverage problem – activities of the Patrol Police Department cover the most densely populated settlements and the main highways of the country which account for only 45% of the territory of Georgia. Patrolling of the remaining part of the country, namely, of some of the cities, towns and villages, also, less busy roads
- is ceded to the territorial authorities of the Ministry (regional police departments). The share of road traffic accidents and deaths observed within the beats of the regional Patrol Police Departments during 2015-2017 accounted for 10-12% and 26-28% of the traffic accidents and deaths registered in the country, respectively. Subsequently, the mentioned territory is a relatively uncontrolled environment due to the following reasons:
- No video/photo surveillance is enforced on the areas of service assigned to the territorial authorities;
- The beat of a separate patrol crew of district inspectors is always considerably greater than that of a patrol police crew.
- The district inspectors worked more than 80 hours a week (working in shifts every other day) during audit period which significantly reduced the efficiency of their activities. Nowadays the situation has improved though they still work 72 hours per week.
- District inspectors are technically underequipped as compared to the patrol inspectors. For instance, they do not have body worn cameras, the means for printing electronic penalty charge notices (they draw up an administrative offense report manually), etc.
Problem in terms of detection of speeding facts – insufficient detection of speeding facts in the country due to inadequate number of radars and their technical malfunctioning often making it impossible to use them. The mentioned problem can be solved by way of timely installation and activation of the section control radars and through equipment of the relevant staff with speed measuring devices, especially on the part of the territory of the country which is left beyond the control of both patrol police and radars.
Problems observed in the operation of a video-surveillance system – part of the video-surveillance system responsible for the detection of various types of traffic rules (apart from speeding) is not in proper working order.
Deficiencies existing in patrol police activities – the existing model and scale of covert patrolling have failed to accomplish a crucial role in the solution of traffic safety issues due to the limited number of patrol crews, service zones, working time, lack of speed measuring devices which have become the reason for unregistered facts of speeding which is one of the prevalent types of violations.
Problem in terms of detection of violations of road traffic rules by pedestrians – traffic accidents are often caused by pedestrians and they hardly get any penalties.
Some of the articles of the Administrative Code do not provide for the imposition of adequate fines for repeat traffic offenders. These are, for instance, articles 116 and 121 of the Code setting forth the amounts of penalties against driving under the influence of alcohol or in case of driving with the driver’s license already suspended or without having it at all. The Code does not envisage criminal responsibility even in case of repeated violation of the mentioned articles and the facts revealed as a result of audit have outlined that some drivers tend to violate the requirements of the mentioned articles on a systematic basis ending in fatal results. Introduction of the penalty point system which implies driving disqualification in case of frequent violation of road traffic rules, have toughened the approach towards repeat traffic offenders though the penalty point system has failed to toughen the punishment for those persons who continue driving even after losing all the points. No criminal responsibility is imposed on a given person in such cases.
Penalty point system does not apply to video fines, thus reducing the efficiency of video fines. According to international practice, any type of penalty is reflected on driver’s points and entails appropriate responsibility.
Certain problems persist in terms of imposition of sanctions against the violations having been recorded by the video-surveillance system, namely:
- Operators do not issue penalty charge notices for the legal entities of private law the identification code whereof is not included in the software.
- No video fines have been issued and sanctions imposed against transit vehicles and vehicles with foreign registration numbers during audit.
- No penalty charge notices can be issued in case of violations recorded with minor software and technical faults (referred to in the report) either, thus decreasing the indicator of responding to the violations revealed.

Delayed and disproportional response to the violations detected has an effect on the number of traffic rule violations and results in traffic accidents.

Ineffectiveness of the measures of collection of the penalties imposed against violations

25-30% of the offenders of road traffic rules avoid the payment of the penalties imposed. The purpose of paying a penalty is the prevention of violation of road traffic rules. Subsequently, effective operation of penalty enforcement mechanisms is vital.
The software of the Ministry has deficiencies. Namely, it is not possible to send any information on outstanding penalties of the private companies to the National Bureau of Enforcement at all, with a view to ensuring compulsory enforcement, neither is it sent by post. As a result, no compulsory enforcement is applied against the failure of the private companies either to pay the penalties. Total value of the mentioned categories of video fines with outstanding status accounted for almost 450.0 thousand GEL by year 2016.
During the audit structural units of the MIA had no consistent statistical summary information on the number and amount of overdue penalties of the offenders, number of video fines not submitted to the addressees, amount of the penalty interests accrued on outstanding penalties, number of those remaining in arrears and number of fines transferred for enforcement. This kind of information is necessary for correct implementation of analytical activities and for the development of a result-oriented action plan. Neither had the Ministry any follow-up information about the status of enforcement of penalties by the LEPL – National Bureau of Enforcement, namely about the number and amount of penalties and penalty interests left unenforced and the reason for the failure to enforce them.

To the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Patrol Police Department and the Unified Operations Centre:

Recommendations with respect to the detection of violations

With a view to enhancing oversight over the observance of road traffic rules and preventing road traffic accidents to the maximum extent possible throughout the territory of Georgia:

Recommendation №1: Special efforts should be made towards the process of developing unified video-surveillance network and the feasibility of placing video-surveillance cameras on secondary as well as on local roads should be considered. Timely conduct of the process of installation of section control radars and putting them into operation should be ensured in order to enable the efficient use of the relevant infrastructure and the software licenses already acquired by the Ministry for these purposes.

Recommendation №2: Possibility of using non-stationary (mobile) speed measuring devices (radars), especially on the locations with no fixed site radars and section control radars arranged, should be considered.

Recommendation №3: Technical malfunction of the fixed site radars arranged throughout the country should be eliminated to enable the Ministry to utilise the available remaining resources to the maximum extent possible and improve the situation considerably. At the same time, efficient use of the available capacities of the video-surveillance cameras procured before 2017 and arranged throughout the country should be ensured.

Recommendation №4: Possibility of creation and running of a special web-page with a view to ensuring participation of citizens in the detection of traffic rule violations should be considered in order to enable (entitle) each citizen to upload a video and/or photo image reflecting a fact of traffic rule violation based on which it will be possible to issue a penalty charge notice. At the same time, an issue of feasibility of mandatory arrangement of video-registrators in passenger transport should be considered, as necessary, with a view to ascertaining the real reasons for road traffic accidents and simplifying investigations.

Recommendation №5: The number, beats and working hours of patrol crews should meet the existing challenges and the feasibility of introducing the practice of mixed method of patrolling should be considered with a view to benefiting from the advantages of covert method of patrolling in a more efficient way.

Recommendation №6: Activities in terms of detection of violations of road traffic rules by pedestrians and imposition of corresponding sanctions should be intensified in extremely risky areas. Recommendations related to the imposition of relevant sanctions against the violations of road traffic rules

Recommendation №7: Advisability of making amendments to legislation aimed at imposing more severe punishment for repeat traffic offenders should be considered with a view to ensuring the imposition of relevant sanctions against the violation of road traffic rules, for instance: drink driving or cases of driving where a person has a driver’s license already suspended or doesn’t have it at all.

Recommendation №8: With a view to introducing a correct and uniform approach of responding to the violations of road traffic rules by state-owned vehicles revealed by means of video-surveillance, it is important to develop relevant criteria and the detailed instruction on the rules of charging penalties and communicate it to the employees in charge of issuing the penalty charge notices for implementation.

Recommendation №9: Possibility of applying a penalty point system to video fines should be considered by taking account of international practice.

Recommendation №10: With a view to imposing corresponding penalties against the violations revealed:

Inclusion of identification codes of all legal entities of private law in the relevant software should be ensured in order to enable the issue of video fines against them as necessary. - Possibility of issuing relevant penalty notices against the facts of violations registered by the software with some imperfections should be considered for the cases where a photo and/or video image provides all the necessary evidences clearly; - Identification of an offender, imposition of a corresponding sanction and implementation of effective enforcement measures should be ensured within the competencies of the Ministry in cases of automatic detection of the facts of traffic violations by transit vehicles and vehicles with foreign registration numbers.

Recommendations for the enhancement of efficiency of the mechanisms of collection of the fines imposed.

Recommendation №11: For the purposes of information analysis and correct planning of further activities it is important that the Ministry of Internal Affairs develops the relevant system in collaboration with the LEPL National Bureau of Enforcement based on which the Ministry will receive information on the status of enforcement of the penalties imposed both for the violations of road traffic rules and other administrative offences.

Recommendation №12: With a view to developing an effective system of enforcement of penalties, integration of all the services enabling the communication of the necessary information on the outstanding penalties of private companies to the National Bureau of Enforcement in the existing software should be accelerated.

Recommendation №13: With a view to solving the issue of improving the process of submission of penalty charge notices to the drivers having violated the road traffic rules and collecting the video fines imposed on them and effectively enacting the amendments to legislation:

The existing database of registrations of vehicles and contact details of their owners should be improved;
Monitoring of the proper fulfilment of the provisions of the agreement concluded with the Georgian post, Ltd. and inspection of the services rendered thereby should be ensured;
Possibility of submission of video fines by patrol police officers at least to the drivers receiving a penalty for a new violation and having undelivered video fines in arrears should be considered;
The issue of using the capacities of district inspectors for the submission of outstanding (undelivered) video fines to the addresses should be considered.