Is the standard of driving bad where you live ? Consider driving in Russia..it’s well, different !

** Medical mental assessment and substance abuse certificates required.

If you can’t, don’t want to or can’t be bothered to take these three tests, then apparently it is still possible to buy your license the old fashioned way, with a contribution to the local police officers favourite charity.

As at 2010 Russia will adopt a zero tolerance drink drive policy, further tightening of existing regulations. Heavy drinking and related traffic accidents are seen as one of the main reasons why one in three Russian men dies before retirement age. The penalties of drink driving are severe, instant confiscation of your driving license, jail overnight if you are incoherent, a hefty fine, possibly a prison sentence and a 2 year driving ban…incentive if ever it were needed to stay stone cold sober.

Fines imposed for minor road offences vary enormously, talk to 10 different people and you’ll get 10 different answers on this subject. Minor offences such as not having your documents 100% in order may attract a fine of only 300 Roubles while one woman that I interviewed complained of receiving a 12,000 Rouble fine for crossing the centre line for 15 metres. Reflecting upon the interviews, it does seem that an attractive young lady in an older car attracts a substantially lower fine than an older woman in an expensive car, for the same offence. Middle aged and young men in flashy or new cars come off worst not surprisingly. There is an official procedure for paying a motoring fine, and involves receiving all the documentation on the spot at the roadside, from the police officer,( Russian paperwork is incredible at the best of times, imagine standing waiting for an hour or more just for the papers ) taking the fine to a police station, queuing, waiting, queuing some more before making payment and getting a stamp on a receipt. Most people who choose this, the correct way, do so out of principle more than a desire to endure the paperwork.

Under Russian law, if there is accidental or deliberate contact with another vehicle, both drivers must stay at the scene until a traffic police unit has attended and taken statements from the parties involved.

In reality there are very few of these special units, sometimes only three cars, with two policemen in each car, to cover the entire region surrounding and including a city. Dozens of drivers have told me that in some cases this shortage of police resources may mean waiting up to 9 hours because of a simple prang with nobody injured. Four and five hour waits are common….regardless of, or if not made longer by the weather conditions at the time. Russian police in the provinces are rarely seen racing full pelt, lights blazing, and sirens blaring to an automobile accident as you would often see in the West.

Russian traffic police authorities are undermanned, suffer from under investment, poor equipment, long hours and in general, poorly paid staff. To understand this more you need to read about the problem of corruption in Russia

Russian police cars are standard, with fairly basic performance, necessitating a sedentary style of policing. The traffic police, working mostly in pairs can be seen most days at strategic points throughout a city, waving down vehicles with a white and black baton. The drivers documents will be checked, a cursory glance over the condition of the vehicle, a look in the boot and, a consideration of whether or not there might be a cause for donating to the traffic police Christmas fund ( needless to say, underpaid and overworked officers regularly look for ways to supplement their income, it happens in every country, the only variation is the method ).

If you’re travelling to Russia as a tourist, stay on the pavements, cross the roads at designated crossing points preferably with other people, disobey the traffic police at your peril…oh, and enjoy your holiday !

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