New traffic code regulations
The police can now suspend the car registration if a vehicles technical inspection certificate is not valid, as new traffic regulations come into force
Mihai Pelin, 21.05.2018, 13:57
Romanian motorists will see their car registration suspended if caught travelling with expired or annulled vehicle technical inspection certificates. The measure was taken last summer after the elimination of the environmental stamp tax unblocked car transactions and allowed the entry into the country of hundreds of thousands of older vehicles. The new measure came into force on the 21st of May. It forms part of a package of laws that also requires the video recording of the technical inspection.
Claudiu Mija, the head of the Monitoring Department of the Romanian Auto Registry, explains: “Beginning on the 21st of May, all technical inspection facilities that have not put in place this system will see their permits suspended. We have the technical means of restricting access to the application. Beginning on the 21st of May, these facilities will no longer be able to perform technical inspections.”
The suspension of the car registration leads to a temporary withdrawal of the right to use the car in traffic. Specifically, motorists who are caught in traffic without a valid technical inspection certificate will have their car registration papers and number plates seized and have to pay a steep fine, their right to use the car being lifted. This means that they won’t even be able to move the car from the spot where they were stopped by the police unless they use a platform or have to push it. They then must go to the Romanian Auto Registry and submit their car to a new technical inspection. The same happens if a vehicle has been sold or bought but the name of the new owner has not been officially replaced within 90 days of the date of sale or purchase. Suspension stops when the vehicle in question passes a new technical inspection test.
The registration certificate and the number plates are then returned to the owner. Moreover, starting this year, the technical inspection is obligatory every 12 months in the case of cars that are older than 12 years, instead of every 24 months. More than half a million second-hand cars brought in from abroad were registered in Romania last year. Official data show they are older than 13 years on average, but what’s worse is that they have problems of which buyers had not been aware of because the car’s history had been altered. Such problems include concealed accidents and altered mileage. The risk of accidents is huge, while big cities are increasingly busy and polluted because of the invasion of these cars. (Translated by C. Mateescu)
