Filenews 22 April 2023
Those who drive in European Union countries during their holidays or during business trips believing that if they commit traffic violations no one will find them, they are probably mistaken, since in the future they will come out of court from abroad.
A Modernizing Directive (of the European Parliament and the Council of the EU) which was promoted in Parliament "cross-border exchange of information on road safety-related traffic offences", regulates the above issues, so extrajudicial or even summonses when it comes to very serious offenses, will come to find offenders or those involved in accidents.
It is noted that Cyprus also faces a problem with thousands of traffic violations that are forgotten or pending because, mainly tourists who commit traffic offences, leave the island without repercussions.
The Directive on cross-border exchange of information, with which Cyprus will be harmonized, covers the following eight traffic offences:
Speeding, failure to wear seat belts, violation of red lights, drunk driving, driving under the influence of drugs, failure to wear a safety helmet, use of a prohibited lane and illegal use of a mobile phone or other communication devices while driving.
New infringements will be added to the infringements by modernising the existing Directive. Countries that have already adopted this policy were asked to inform the European Commission of current road safety rules and make them available on a website in all official languages.
According to the impact assessment (from cross-border exchange of information), although non-resident drivers accounted for around 5% of road traffic in the EU, they committed around 15% of speeding offences. It was considered more likely that non-residents of a country would commit more speeding offences than residents.
In 2015, 50% of traffic offences detected and committed by non-residents were not investigated.
As stated in an accompanying document, one of the reasons why non-residents of a country did not pay out-of-court fees was because they considered themselves less likely to be penalised when driving in a Member State in which they did not reside. They also thought they were less likely to face legal proceedings if they did not pay fines imposed by foreign authorities.
The renewed Directive that is being promoted aims to further enhance road safety by extending the scope of the Directive on cross-border exchange of information to other road safety-related traffic offences and to streamline (i.e. simplify, digitalise and improve) the investigation of road safety-related traffic offences committed abroad. thus facilitating cross-border sanctioning.
The accompanying document states that risky behaviour contributes to a large number of deaths and serious injuries on the road network. It is considered that reducing impunity (by extending the scope of the Directive on cross-border exchange of information to other road safety-related traffic offences) is crucial.
Half of the offences are not investigated
The 2016 evaluation of the Cross-border Exchange of Information Directive identified the following main reasons preventing non-resident offenders from applying justice: 1) Around half of detected traffic offences committed by non-residents were not investigated. 2) About half of the financial penalties for traffic offences investigated were not successfully imposed. 3) Almost all infringements in which offenders refused to pay financial penalties were not executed.
The explanatory memorandum accompanying the Directive states that road safety in the EU has improved significantly over the last 20 years. Specifically, deaths fell from about 51,400 in 2001 to about 19,800 in 2021.
However, it is recognised that improving road safety has not been sufficient to achieve the EU's political ambition of reducing the number of road deaths by 50% between 2001-2010 and by a further 50% between 2011-2020 (i.e. by 75% between 2001-2020), stemming from a series of strategic documents issued by the Commission over the last two decades.
The number of 19,800 road fatalities in 2021 continues to far exceed the target value, despite an impressive annual decrease of more than 17% compared to the corresponding number of road deaths for 2019, which, however, was significantly affected by the unprecedented decrease in road traffic volumes following the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the years leading up to 2020, the number of road fatalities hardly decreased.
