site.btaLv 200 Parking Fine Approved on First Reading

Lv 200 Parking Fine Approved on First Reading

Sofia, April 8 (BTA) - If a driver parks their car in a public
garden, on a children's playground or on a pavement, and if that
 area is not designated for parking, the driver will be fined
200 leva, according to Road Traffic Act amendments proposed by
the ruling GERB party and approved by Parliament on first
reading on Wednesday.

This is one of four bills to amend the Road Traffic Act which
were considered on first reading.

Defending the view that the parking fine must be increased to
200 leva, Tsvetomir Mihov (GERB) said that the current fine of
20 leva does not deter drivers from violating parking rules.

A joint bill by MPs of GERB and the Reformist Bloc, which was
challenged by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), seeks to
entitle municipal councils to set a parking price, not a parking
 fee, for the so-called blue and green zones in cities. The
difference between a price and a fee is that the price does not
depend on the expenses incurred and will therefore bring more
revenues for the municipality, Stanislav Ivanov (GERB)
explained. The payments will be collected by a special municipal
 government unit or by a legal entity contracted to manage the
respective zone.

Georgi Svilenski (BSP) said that Sofia's public purse has not
received a single lev from the parking fees for the blue and
green zones over the last few years. Discussing the proposed 200
 leva parking fine, Svilenski wondered whether the municipal
authorities should not be penalized for failing to provide
parking space. Dora Yankova (BSP) objected to the proposed
replacement of the parking fee by a parking price, saying that a
 municipal government is supposed to provide social services to
the community, not market services.

Before the second reading of the proposed amendments, the
Patriotic Front will try to protect the interests of people
whose home is situated in a blue or green zone and who need to
park their vehicle in that zone, the Front's Dimiter Bairaktarov
 said. He said the parking fine should be even higher than 200
leva.

One of the bills, which was proposed by Peter Slavov (Reformist
Bloc) and defeated by the parliamentary majority, suggested that
 if traffic lights do not indicate the duration of the green
light, they must be equipped with a device to warn of the ending
 of the green light by blinking three times.

Parliament also defeated a motion by Svetlin Tanchev (Bulgarian
Democratic Centre) which was intended to allow drivers to turn
right on red, provided that they give way to pedestrians
crossing concurrently and the road is passable. Tanchev argued
that the idea is to alleviate traffic congestion, and noted that
 some European cities apply this rule.