Motorists’ Riot: Half Of Drivers Boycott Road Tax

Motorists have become leaders in a spontaneous campaign of disobedience.

In recent years, more and more Belarusian motorists refuse to pass the state vehicle inspection: it takes much more money to pay the road tax than the fines for the absence of the vehicle inspection record.

1.2 million cars – and this is almost half of the total number registered in Belarus – have not gone through the technical test on time. Deputy chief of the unitary enterprise Beltekhahliad Uladzimir Piulski specified such data in the program Main Air on BT. There are also a lot of those who fail the test and do not get driving permittion from the first time: and half of them, because of brake system malfunctions.

The accident in Minsk on December 2, when a ZIL truck drove into a group of pedestrians walking across the street at a light on a lively section of Winners Avenue near the shopping center Zamak, was mentioned in the program. An 11-year-old girl died on the spot, four people were hospitalized. According to the driver, the truck’s brakes refused to act. Later it became known that the truck has not gone through the technical test since 2015.

Let us remind that for three years the Belarusians have been paying the state duty for their cars to get permission to participate in the traffic. It is calculated on the basis of the mass of the car and does not depend on the year of manufacture or the brand of the car and is paid in full before going through the test. Because of this, a lot of motorists ignore the inspection.

Recently, the deputies spoke in favor of changing the mechanism for levying the state duty to allow a vehicle to participate in the traffic.