(source: Sme)
Approximately 100,000 transgressions of Slovak drivers for driving without valid motorway e-stickers and another by 150,000 foreign drivers have been recorded this year. Under a regulation currently in place, the state could levy fines of almost €20 million in total.
This is unacceptable, as it would damage some households significantly, according to the Transport Ministry. Therefore, the ministry is planning some amendments to the law on e-stickers and wants to submit them to the ministry’s internal comments process by next week.
“I’ll make a personal effort to get this bill to the cabinet as soon as possible and then possibly after agreement with our partners also to a fast-tracked procedure,” Transport Minister Roman Brecely (Sieť) told the May 2 press conference, as quoted by the TASR newswire.
According to the plan, the fine should be lowered from the current €300 to €150. The periodicity of penalisation is about to change as well: whereas nowadays, a fine is imposed for every day of driving without a valid e-sticker, after the change, drivers would not receive new fines any sooner than a month after the first fine. If, however, they pay up within 15 days, the sum should be reduced to €100.
This is a good step to motivate drivers, said Michal Halabica from the National Highway Company (NDS). He added that if a motorist receives a second fine, but buys a €50 e-sticker valid for one year, the second fine will be forgiven, as reported by TASR.
The ministry also wants the new rules to be valid retroactively, i.e. for all motorists driving without an e-sticker since February 1, 2016.
“All those who have been in the system since February 1 and have violated the law by not driving with a valid e-sticker will be fined,” Brecely said, as quoted by TASR. “However, not with a 24-hour periodicity, but with a single fine of €150.”
All that notwithstanding, there have been problems generating a working system for levying the fines.
The Transport Ministry envisages taking advantage of Slovakia’s presidency over the EU Council in order to submit a proposal, according to which foreign vehicles driving on Slovak motorways without valid e-stickers could be fined as well.
