Penalty notices, or so-called “chain letters” (as the people dubbed them), can be paid at a significant discount, which is 50 percent. This rule is valid if the violation document was handed over and then paid by the citizen within 20 calendar days. Considering that this notice is often sent by mail, many motorists note that the notice takes longer than necessary.
How to pay a traffic police fine with a 50 percent discount if the letter arrived later?
On the territory of the Russian Federation, there are rules according to which a fine paid by a motorist within 20 days after registration provides for a 50 percent discount. In order to notify the car owner that he violated certain rules, which were then attracted to a fine, photo and video recording takes place. Then all data is sent by mail. Unfortunately, some letters go to the addressee for more than 20 days.
In December 2017, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation issued an important ruling. If the letter did not reach the addressee on time due to technical reasons, the discount on the fine is valid for the next 20 days. Often, motorists are interested in the question - how to prove in court that more than 20 days have passed after receipt, if the date is not on the letter? First of all, the so-called deadlines are taken into account. Another item that will help the motorist pay 50 percent of the fine refers to the notice of delivery.
Without fail, violators must familiarize themselves with all the fines that are recorded by CCTV cameras. If the notification document contains a date that indicates that the letter was delivered later than the due date, the citizen also has the right to pay half the amount.
How to simplify the payment of a fine in half the amount?
Citizens of the Russian Federation can pay a fine of 50 percent and then see if the bailiffs are interested in the violator or not. You can also try to appeal the missed deadline. The first option, namely the waiting position, is the most optimal, because after the bailiffs demand the second half of the fine from the violator, it is possible to appeal against this action.
An interested citizen is sent to the courts and draws up a corresponding statement that the letter came to him later. First of all, the application is drawn up for the traffic police unit, which formed the appropriate fine. The applicant asks to restore the right to pay a fine of 50 percent. It is noteworthy that this instance often issues a refusal to this request. If, nevertheless, the traffic police allows you to pay half the fine, the citizen enjoys this right or is sent to the district court at the place of violation in case of refusal. An application is also made.
If even in this case a decision was made to refuse to pay a fine of 50 percent, the applicant is sent to the regional Supreme Court. When a motion for a reduction is not pending, the applicant can go all the way to the Supreme Court. If one of the courts considers the application and reports that the citizen can pay a fine of 50 percent, he turns to the bailiff, who withdraws funds from the violator's personal card or conducts a recovery procedure.
The relevant draft amendments to the Code of Administrative Offenses have been prepared by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Now it is posted on the regulation.gov.ru portal for public discussion.
The Constitutional Court demanded to make it possible to extend the term for paying the fine at a discount.
Recall that in 2015, drivers had the opportunity to pay fines for most traffic violations at a 50 percent discount. The discount does not apply to repeated violations, as well as penalties for drunkenness.
But a discount can only be obtained if the driver managed to pay the fine within 20 days from the date of the decision, and not from the date it came into force. That is, the countdown begins precisely from the day when the inspector signed the resolution.
Until the amendments are adopted, law enforcers should consider the possibility of restoring the deadlines
However, not all drivers receive "letters of happiness" on time. The driver Yuri Reinhimmel received such a letter a month after the decision to impose an administrative penalty was issued against him. It is clear that he could no longer pay the fine at a discount. By the way, he was fined in automatic mode for speeding by 500 rubles. That is, the whole point of the dispute is 250 rubles. However, the victim went on principle.
He proved that the letter was delivered to him late. This was recognized not only by Roskomnadzor, but also by the arbitration court, which fined the postal workers 30,000 rubles.
However, in the Moscow region traffic police, such evidence of delay was not enough. However, this is quite understandable. After all, the Code of Administrative Offenses clearly states: 20 days from the date of the decision. And if the driver did not receive it on time, then this is his problem. The Code of Administrative Offenses does not provide for the possibility of restoring deadlines missed through no fault of his own.
In addition, this discount, as conceived by the legislators, is designed for those who follow their administrative history, try to keep track of fines issued and pay them on time. Moreover, there are many services for this, ranging from the website of the State Traffic Inspectorate to the State Services portal. Therefore, once 20 days have passed - pay in full.
The car owner was not satisfied with such a message, and he went to court. But the court sided with the traffic police.
Then the driver decided to appeal against the very provision on the terms of payment of the fine at a discount in the Constitutional Court. Such an approach, in his opinion, is contrary to the Basic Law, which guarantees citizens the right to judicial protection of their rights. He pointed out that persons who have lost the right to pay a fine at a discount for a good reason cannot actually restore this right.
And the Constitutional Court sided with the driver. In his decision, he pointed out that the placement of electronic orders on websites, including the traffic police, does not compensate for the late delivery of paper correspondence.
These are optional alerts and are of an informal reference nature. The law provides for only one notification option: by registered mail.
Therefore, the impossibility of extending the deadlines due to late delivery is not consistent with the constitutional principles of legal equality and fairness.
As a result, the court ordered amendments to the legislation. And until the relevant amendments are made to the legislation, according to the decision of the Constitutional Court, law enforcers, including the courts, do not have the right to evade consideration of the possibility of restoring the deadline for paying half of the fine at the request of the applicant. But in those cases when the "letter of happiness" came to the addressee after the expiration of 20 days.
Changes to the law were not long in coming. The Ministry of Internal Affairs proposes to supplement part 1.3 of Article 32.2 of the Code of Administrative Offenses with the following wording. "If a copy of the decision on the imposition of an administrative fine, sent to the person brought to administrative responsibility by registered mail, arrived at his address after the expiration of twenty days from the date of issuance, the specified period may be restored by the judge, body, official who issued the said decision , at the request of the person brought to administrative responsibility.
However, some experts believe that it would be more correct to introduce an amendment to the Code of Administrative Offenses that would make the notification of the State Services portal official.
By the way, according to the traffic police last year, 108.7 million decisions were issued. Of these, 106.6 could be paid at a discount. A total of 84.8 million fines were paid. Of these, 65.8 million - with a fifty percent discount. This is 78 percent of all fines paid.
In connection with the innovation of February 1, 2016, appeared. This privilege applies only to those persons who are ready to pay the fine within 20 days from the moment the punishment order comes into force.
Next, the question will be raised regarding the draft federal law, which tells “On Amendments to the Code of the Russian Federation, Art. 31.8 and 32.2 regulating administrative offenses”. In this project, it is proposed to increase the term for paying a fine at a discount.
Law extending the 50% discount on fines
If we consider the state of affairs as of February 6, 2018, then the draft law concerning the introduction of amendments to the articles on administrative offenses of the Code of the Russian Federation was prepared by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but was not submitted to the State Duma of the Russian Federation for consideration.
Is it possible to restore the term for paying a fine at a discount?
Here, an additional explanation is needed, which may well be added to the Code of Administrative Offenses, Art. 32.2 h. 1.3:
In what cases can a missed payment deadline be restored?
The likelihood of recovering missed deadlines increases when conditions such as:
- If the issued decision containing information on the amount of the fine is sent to the driver by registered mail. In these cases, fines are recorded by CCTV cameras, which operate automatically. Fines imposed by the traffic police do not fall under the possibility of extending the discount.
- Some slowness in the work of the mail leads to the fact that the letter with the decision enclosed in it is delayed and arrives not after 20 days, but later. In this case, the driver can count on a discount. But, if the letter arrives on the 19th day, and the fined driver does not have time to use the 50% discount on that day, then he loses the right to extend the payment period at a preferential discount.
- To extend the discount period, the driver must write a petition to the judge or any other official who participated in the decision.
It is necessary to pay attention to the casus of such a question: upon receipt of a registered letter to the driver, it is not completely reliable what is inside the sealed envelope. Even if the recipient of a registered letter has a premonition that the envelope contains a decision with penalties, he does not know for sure about the timing of the decision.
In the envelope of any letter, there may be a decision with a fine issued 19 days earlier and it is no longer possible to extend the discount in this case. Therefore, the receipt of a registered letter must be associated with the day when the driver will be morally and financially ready to pay the fine due to him.
In some cases, the driver needs to confirm the date the letter was received. Of course, postal employees are required to record the date of issue of such letters in their documents, but it is not their responsibility to issue a confirmation of receipt to the addressee. The date of issue is not put down on the envelope either, only the date of departure and receipt at the appropriate post office.
How to extend the term of payment of a fine with a discount?
Pay attention to another equally important point. at a discount are not subject to automatic renewal. In order to extend them, it is necessary to submit a written request to the traffic officer who issued this decision on the collection of a fine. You can personally visit the unit and leave a document (petition) there, or you can send it by mail, as a registered letter.
This procedure is not difficult and requires only a little time and money if the application is sent by mail.
The new bill can help those car owners whose habit does not change over time, and they learn about their penalty obligations by mail. But if you periodically go to the official website of the traffic police, then in the event of new fines, you can pay them on time, and even with a 50% discount.
We remind you once again that this article talked about an innovation that is at the project stage and does not work yet.
Sometimes a driver, having passed under a traffic camera he saw late, doubts whether there was a violation or not? For many fines, the amount of the penalty can be halved if the receipt is paid within 20 days. Often cameras fail and give errors.
In such cases, the driver must not miss the 10 day period to appeal against the illegal decision. Therefore, it is useful to know where you can find out about the presence of a fine and at what time “letters of happiness” arrive to the car owner.
Where do fines go?
If a traffic violation was recorded on camera, then the offending driver should be held responsible, of course, if he is officially warned about this.
So, information about violations from cameras can come:
- In the form of a notification from the Gosuslug website to the official e-mail of the car owner. Naturally, on the site you need to register in your personal account and confirm your identity. Without waiting for the mailing, you can periodically check the status of fines yourself.
- SMS notification to a client of Sberbank using the Online service. And also from other large banks, if the "Auto payment of fines" service is connected.
- The address of the owner of the vehicle. The letter must be registered. Therefore, if the letter was sent to another address or it is not registered, then the driver is not considered notified and theoretically may not pay a fine. True, the bailiffs will sooner or later inform about such a fine.
The mail notification arrives late, which is clearly unprofitable for the driver for many reasons (the discount period for fines is lost, the bank account may be arrested, a ban on traveling abroad). Often a person does not live at the registration address and may not find out about the letter at all.
Therefore, the driver can use other sources to find out the issue with the fine.
The main ways to find out about the fine
When a fine came to the post office from the camera, what to do: appeal or just pay, the driver will easily understand.
But sometimes the driver can only guess that he committed a violation of traffic rules in the coverage area of the traffic camera. Or he was driving in another city, region, or unknown area, violating signs or markings. However, no notifications of fines are received by mail.
And in order not to wonder how long the traffic police fines come, filmed by the camera, you can learn about the violation from other sources.
If you have an STS number and a driver's license, you can find the necessary information:
- Through the Internet portal of the traffic police.
- Additional traffic police website. This site has an SMS messaging service. When sending a message to number 9112 with the text: "STSI_car number_number of rights", a response will be received later about the presence of violations.
- Through the State Services portal. The information is available to authorized users.
- Website for drivers "Autocode". The site is oriented only for residents of Moscow. You can see data about parking violations.
How long does it take for fines to be reported?
- The fastest data is sent to the State Services portal, the traffic police website.
- On average, a notification to users of the State Services portal, customers of banks with the connected service “Penalties”, “Autopayment” is received within 3 days from the date of the violation.
- The first information about the fine is submitted to the general databases after the decision on an administrative offense is drawn up. This period may be from 1 to 15 days, depending on the total number of other violations, the workload of traffic police officers (formalizing the material), etc.
If these services are not connected automatically, then the driver can independently dispel doubts and check whether he has committed violations. To do this, you need to visit either the State Services website (through your personal account), or the traffic police website, as well as other information sources.
The approximate time for receiving a fine order by mail to the registration address is 20-25 days.
How to request data
Traffic police website
On the site in the section "Checking fines" it is necessary to drive in the state number and details of the vehicle certificate. The online service will check the car for all fines and provide information.
It is impossible to say how long the fine from the cameras arrives on the traffic police website with an accuracy of a day. Since the information comes after the decision is made and with the next update of the data on the traffic police website.
Accordingly, it may turn out that the information will be either earlier or later than the postal notice. But still somewhere in the same period.
State Services Portal
In order to fully use the resource of the site, you need to register (create your personal account).
After that, by logging into the site under your name, in the section "Automobile and traffic fines" you can find information about fines or their absence.
Information for state services comes from CAFAP data, that is, promptly. There will be no fundamentally new information. But it is more convenient for many to use the portal, since there you can immediately pay the amount of penalties.
Bailiffs
Information about fines is also concentrated in the service "Bank of Enforcement Proceedings". True, the information there is not entirely fresh. As a rule, information comes across there when the period for the voluntary repayment of a fine ends, that is, after 70 days from the date of the decision. And, nevertheless, if you promptly pay the amount presented (you can directly from the website of the bailiffs, next to the amount of the fine there will be a payment button), then you can avoid all sorts of troubles in the form of seizure of property, blocking of a bank card, etc.
Other services
Now information about the fine can also be obtained from specialized commercial sites. There are enough such Internet resources.
Payment of the fine before receiving the letter
If you use the services of the State Services portal or the Sberbank service “Auto payment of traffic police fines”, “Notice of fines”, then the account data where the fine should be paid is generated automatically and very quickly.
To take advantage 50% discount must be able to pay fines within 20 days from the date of the decision. Therefore, if you agree with the fine, you can not wait for the letter and pay as soon as the message arrives.
If a citizen does not use these services, then you can find out the bank details on the traffic police website or by calling the regional CAFAP.
Like coming fines in the mail
To understand how quickly "letters of happiness" come, it is enough to know the stages of the administrative procedure.
Receipt of materials in CAFAP traffic police
From the stationary camera, materials about violations are sent to TsAFAP automatically in real time.
If the fixation camera was mobile or portable, then the employee responsible for it provides materials within 1-2 days after the violation is detected.
Consideration in CAFAP
The material is considered approximately 1 - 1.5 weeks, but not more than 15 days. The consideration ends with the drafting of a decision.
If errors and inconsistencies are found (for example, unreadable numbers), then the administrative check is terminated.
Sending to the offender
The assembled package (decree, photographic material and receipt) is sent by registered mail, which takes 2-3 days to reach the addressee. That is, the car owner will receive a notification in the mailbox or personally from the postman 4-5 days after sending.
If the owner of the car is from another region, then the postal service will increase delivery by 5-10 days.
Of course, at each stage there may be hitches, which can lead to a slight increase in time.
Notice of payment of a fine
Recently, CAFAP departments began to send notifications of unpaid fines to violators.
The traffic police officer in the database monitors the state of the fine and if he sees that the fine is not paid within 20 days (that is, during the period when the 50% amount is provided), then the driver is sent a reminder. Although to say exactly how many days such a notification is sent, no one really knows.
The essence of the notification is to inform about the presence of an outstanding fine and, in case of refusal to pay, they offer to come to the CAFAP employee after 70 days to draw up a protocol under Art. 20.25 Administrative Code of the Russian Federation. That is, they will be attracted to a double fine for non-payment of the main one.
If such a notification has been received, and you did not know about the fine, then you need to write a letter to CAFAP about re-submitting copies of materials from the video recording camera. And only after making sure that such a case really was, you can pay the bill.
What violations does the camera capture
In order to understand what violations are possible and how not to delay payment or appeal, you need to know what fines come from the cameras. Traffic cameras detect the following violations:
- movement speed;
- parking;
- seat belts;
- passage of pedestrian crossings;
- intersections of solid lines, stop lines, tram tracks;
- driving on the lane for public transport;
- incorrect passage of regulated intersections;
- roadside traffic;
- prohibited or incorrect maneuvers (turning, turning, reversing, etc.);
- use of prohibited xenon headlights;
- and others.
The most common is a fine for speeding from the camera.
At the same time, the design of technical means, the method of its application, etc. are not important.
The rules for fixing a violation, drawing up a resolution and sending materials to the culprit, in other matters, as well as the terms of payment, are the same. That is, it does not matter from which camera the fine came from, the procedure is the same for all cases.
Given the possible failures in the postal service, it happens that a letter with a fine does not reach the driver. In fact, the fine hangs, although the car owner does not know about it. After a while, the materials are handed over to the bailiffs. And they are taking tough action.
Therefore, you should periodically check the situation with fines at least once a month (through the websites of the traffic police, public services, bailiffs, etc.).
Sometimes drivers feel that a letter with fines should not be received in the mail upon notification. No matter how you get the decision, it means they can’t recover anything. But this is not true. Collection will be carried out through bailiffs. As a result, it will still be necessary to solve the problem with a fine, only this story will be much more complicated.
In this regard, the decision must be obtained without wasting time. Examine the materials and decide what to do with it.
If the materials are indisputable, it is easier to make a payment within 20 days, saving half the amount.
When there are inaccuracies and erroneous data, then one should fight for the truth by filing a complaint with the court.
