Parking violators may be allowed to pay only half the fine

The discount for violators will be 50% if the penalty is paid within 20 days after it is issued.

The Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg has submitted a bill to the State Duma of the Russian Federation, according to which regional authorities may be granted the right to introduce a 50% discount on the amount of a fine for violating the rules for using paid parking lots in the event of its prompt payment. Since 2016, such a benefit for car owners has been extended to certain fines for traffic violations, such as exceeding the speed limit or driving without an MTPL policy.

The deadline for prompt payment of the fine is the same — 20 days after the fine for non-payment of parking is issued. As Kommersant reports, the initiators believe that this relaxation will both standardize the practice and increase the collection of fines. It is worth noting that, according to statistics from the Accounts Chamber and the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, in the period from 2016 to 2023, the share of paid fines increased from 82 to 90%.

It is known that the largest fine for violators is currently set in Moscow: unpaid parking here costs 5 thousand rubles. In such large cities as St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Krasnodar, the amount of the fine is 3 thousand rubles. In other cities, for example, in Tyumen and Tula, the amount of the fine for violators is 2.5 thousand rubles.

Photo: alexbr, Depositphotos.com

It should be noted that the project concerning the introduction of a 50% discount on the payment of fines for certain traffic violations did not initially include regional fines, since the authorities of the subjects do not establish penalties for traffic violations. At the same time, according to representatives of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, «by their legal nature, parking violations are similar» to traffic violations, for which a discount is currently in effect throughout the country.

Similar initiatives have been put forward before. This includes the bill by representatives of the LDPR faction, which was submitted for consideration in February of this year. It is known that this document was rejected last month due to the fact that the deputies did not analyze law enforcement practice and did not use statistical data.

In turn, the initiative of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg was conceptually supported by the Russian government (the corresponding conclusion already exists). So this document has a better chance of becoming a new current norm. By the way, it was previously assumed that the relevant amendments would be included in the new version of the Code of Administrative Offenses, however, its preparation has been ongoing for several years, and there is no final version at the moment.

As noted in the publication, the government considers the approach in which the presence/absence of a discount depends on the position of the authorities of the subject of the Russian Federation on this issue to be incorrect: this is a violation of the principle of equality before the law. This means that, as a result, a discount on fines for unpaid parking can be introduced in all regions at once (if the corresponding initiative is approved).