Despite the fact that a speed limit of 60 km/h usually applies in populated areas, vehicles moving at speeds up to 79 km/h are generally not subject to fines. This rule is enshrined in the current norms of the Code of Administrative Offenses: administrative punishment is not applied if the excess does not exceed 20 km/h.
However, the absence of a fine does not mean that there is no violation. This order appeared not as an indulgence for motorists, but as a forced decision related to the peculiarities of speed control on roads.
No fine, but the violation remains
From a legal point of view, a driver becomes a violator immediately after exceeding the maximum permitted speed, regardless of whether the excess is 2, 10, or 20 km/h. The only difference is that in certain cases, administrative penalties are not applied.
At the same time, the absence of a fine does not exempt the driver from possible consequences in other situations. For example, if a road traffic accident occurs and an expert examination establishes that the car was moving faster than allowed, even by 5–10 km/h, this fact may be taken into account when considering the circumstances of the accident and evaluating the driver's actions.
The non-fine threshold does not cancel the fact of the violation itself, but only defines the boundary after which administrative responsibility arises.
Why the threshold was increased to 20 km/h
It is widely believed that the reason was the new radars that began to equip the Traffic Police units. It is believed that the equipment had a significant measurement error, so the previous non-fine excess of 10 km/h was not enough.
Until 2013, with a speed limit of 60 km/h, fines were generally imposed on drivers moving faster than 72 km/h. This margin was formed from the maximum permissible errors of the car's speedometer and the measuring complex, which could cumulatively reach approximately 12 km/h. Because of this, many decisions were successfully challenged in courts.
At the same time, motorists themselves often associated the problem not so much with the technical capabilities of the equipment, but with how Traffic Police officers used it. To exclude the influence of the human factor, an automatic speed recording procedure was introduced. However, the issue was finally resolved only after increasing the non-fine excess to 20 km/h.
The main reasons for the change were the following:
- the need to exclude errors in recording violations;
- the presence of permissible errors in measuring equipment;
- a large number of successfully challenged fines;
- the transition to automatic speed control.
What has changed today
Over the years, measuring systems have become significantly more accurate. As Mikhail Kizlyk, head of the Moscow Traffic Management Center, noted, modern cameras are capable of determining speed with an accuracy of 2–3 km/h. These indicators comply with the requirements of GOST R 57144–2016, which allows precisely such a measurement error.
Similar requirements apply to car speedometers. They can only slightly overestimate the actual speed readings — by no more than 4–5 km/h. If the device operates differently, the car is considered technically faulty and should not be operated.
From a technical point of view, this means that today the Traffic Police already has the opportunity to return to the previous non-fine excess of 10 km/h. Legislators considered the question of such a measure at the beginning of this year, assessing its expediency. For now, it was decided to maintain the current order, although it may be revised in the future.
What the Traffic Police is preparing for
Although the current threshold remains unchanged for now, work on a possible revision of the rules is already underway. With the help of cameras, specialists analyze the speed of vehicles and how drivers comply with the requirements of road signs and markings.
Such monitoring is necessary because many road sections require a serious review of speed limits to reduce the number of road traffic accidents.
First of all, this refers to areas with increased risk, among which are:
- sections near schools;
- roads near hospitals;
- recreational areas;
- areas with intensive pedestrian traffic.
It is in such places that compliance with the established speed regime is of fundamental importance. Therefore, one should not rely solely on the current non-fine threshold of 20 km/h, since the safety of road users directly depends on compliance with the established restrictions.