Camera fines on minister’s to-do list this week
Traffic violations caught on camera and the fines they entail were among proposals discussed at the House on Thursday, with transport minister Alexis Vafeades pledging to return with an official position within a week pending a road safety council meeting.
Following a briefing at the House transport committee on proposed bills to amend legislation dictating fines and sentences for traffic violations, Vafeades said “we have heard various comments from MPs and we have agreed that we will discuss these proposals at the next meeting of the road safety council.”
“We will convene the meeting as early as possible, so that the House can be informed the soonest on our official positions on the bills,” he told a press briefing.
Referring to the red-light violation, Vafeades said if someone crosses a red traffic light the fine today is €300 and the ministry has no intention of reducing it.
He said the ministry’s proposal at the previous committee meeting was to maintain the current fines, with the only difference being that if only the first line is crossed, the offenders can have their fine slashed by 50 per cent, as long as they pay up within a fortnight.
“We have our own proposal, but we will also discuss the bills of the MPs,” he said.
Vafeades said some improvements have already been made at junctions and the complaints coming in have significantly dropped.
“We must say that we have fewer complaints and the number of fines has reduced by 28 per cent since the changes made,” he said.
For this reason, he added, the ministry was preparing a comprehensive study on all junctions.
Changes already passed by the House, such as the first- and second-line violations, demanded alterations to the software and technical equipment, followed by approvals, which could take up to 12 months.
Referring to the deadline to pay fines, Vafeades said the ministry had spoken about extending it to 30 days, while Thursday’s meeting had heard 60 to 90 days.
“Any measures facilitating the citizens to pay the fine is in the right direction,” he pointed out.
Asked about the increase of road deaths this year – almost double – the minister referred to the bigger picture, saying that since the 1990s there had been a significant reduction in fatal road accidents.
“We will have fluctuations. The point is to continue to the effort, to improve the road network, to make it safer, to have better monitoring means, better driver-education and of course we benefit from safer vehicles,” he said.
Disy MP Fotini Tsiridou said the system may have been unfair on law-abiding drivers or may have even violated the principle of proportionality but is “a huge reform which we should protect.”
She added that Disy’s bill provided for a 30 per cent reduction of the fine if paid on time, pushing the deadline from 15 to 60 days and cancelling penalty points up till March due to technical problems.
Akel MP Valentinos Facontis said the system had been installed to prevent and reduce accidents, but unfortunately had turned into a cash machine, often “trapping” drivers.
He said Akel had proposed paying the fines in installments and installing countdown timers at junctions with cameras.
Diko MP Chrysanthos Savvides said his party has proposed increasing the penalty points and erasing insignificant offences by new drivers so the driving schools do not accumulate fines and penalty points.
Elam also put forward proposals, with MP Sotiris Ioannou listing timers and paying fines in installments.