Pafos Press 6 March 2025
Before the Parliament are significant changes concerning the photo identification system.
The Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Transport, Marinos Mousiouttas, reported to Protoselido that the Plenary will vote on three important issues. These are legislative proposals regarding the repayment of out-of-court fines in instalments, the installation of timers on cameras, and the increase in the number of days for repayment of out-of-court fines from 30 to 90 days.
Regarding the increase in the repayment days for out-of-court debts, he noted that "where you had 30 days to pay the out-of-court debt and after 15 days it went up by 50% and if you didn't pay you would go to court, now the 30 days are increased to 90, after 15 days it will go up by 50% and then it's for the court. It's a proposal that I imagine has universal support."
In relation to the proposed law for paying out-of-court bail in instalments, he said that "there was quite a bit of discussion. There is one view that payments should be made in instalments, but it was stated from an official perspective that it is difficult to implement, while there were also some other objections and that it may take five to six months for this correction to be made. There is also the other view, within the Committee, which says that if the proposal for increasing the days for repayment is passed, you can save the money yourself to pay the out-of-court bail."
As for the timers, he explained that there are two proposals and they state that "the State must install timers on traffic lights. If and when the timers are not implemented on traffic lights that have cameras, then the operation of the system should be suspended."
Mr. Mousiouttas pointed out that “all the government agencies came, even camera installation specialists, and they told us that the specific traffic light system that we have installed and the smart lights that we hear about but have not seen, their technology is not compatible with the timers for one simple reason. Smart lights are intended to help channel traffic. Essentially, the flow of red and green changes depending on the traffic. So by putting in timers that tell you you have 60 seconds and then change it to, for example, ten seconds, it will create more confusion. The proposal will essentially abolish the system.
