Wednesday, July 16 2014

 The civic initiative "Keep Away From Our Pockets" urges Armenia's drivers not to pay fines for violating the traffic rules but to challenge the fines in a judicial procedure, Vardan Hakobyan, one of the organizers of the initiative, said at today's press conference.     

He also urges the drivers not to pay the traffic tickets issued by the Road Police. "Let the court decide how much lawful they are. Bring your traffic tickets, and we will challenge them in a judicial procedure. We will fill the administrative court with such tickets", he said. Hakobyan added that the initiative includes drivers and lawyers, who are ready to provide us with free legal consultation. "These are students of law faculties and they support us", he said. 

Hakobyan added that on July 17 the initiative will hold a motor rally. According to him, 4,000 traffic fines are daily registered in Armenia. (In monetary terms it may total; nearly 40 mln AMD daily, or 480 mln AMD monthly, or 5.7 bln AMD annually give that an average traffic ticket costs 10 thsd AMD - editor's note). Hakobyan qualifies the current traffic situation as racketeering by a private company, which receives 70% of all revenues from fine payments. He said that in 2012-2013 800 thsd traffic tickets were registered annually. 

The situation has not changed for the better. The only difference is that in 2012 the fines were registered by the Road Police and in 2013 they were registered by the cameras. Hakobyan pointed out that there are too many cameras in Armenia and that their number is higher in Armenia than in many European countries. For instance, there are only 3400 cameras throughout Germany, whereas in Armenia, which is 60 times as small as Germany, the number of cameras exceeds 1,000. "I consider it to be one more intention to do business rather than ensure traffic safety", he said. 

Earlier it was reported that Sensys Traffic AB (Sweden) has the right to receive 70% of the revenues from the traffic fine payments in Armenia.