Belarusian drivers are being held accountable through video recording

November 11, Minsk / Andrey Asfura - BELTA /. In Belarus, traffic violations have begun to be recorded and violators held accountable using video cameras. This was announced today to journalists by the Deputy Head of the Main Traffic Police Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Belarus, Maxim Podberezkin, BELTA correspondent reports. Currently, a data processing center for video recording of traffic violations exists and operates, said the Deputy Head of the Main Traffic Police Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The only issue is a technical delay in launching the system at full capacity. The database has already been created, the mechanism has been debugged, but it takes some time to launch the video recording system at full capacity, as this system is technologically complex and can fail in case of an error. The legal aspect of launching the video recording system has been fully worked out. "We do not want to make mistakes, because if failures occur, complaints will also come in," admitted Maxim Podberezkin. Currently, more than 20 cameras are operating in the system, and in the near future their number will increase several times. The Deputy Head of the Main Traffic Police Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs also noted that drivers who have received letters with photos taken by the video recording system have not yet filed a single complaint. In early October, Decree No. 454 came into force in Belarus, which allows for fining car owners for speeding based on data from special photo and video recording devices. According to the document, if a foreign citizen or a stateless person was driving at the time of the violation, their driver's license is confiscated until the administrative penalty is paid, for which a report is drawn up. A temporary permit is issued in return. However, such a sanction does not apply to those who permanently reside in Belarus. The decree also provides for the amount of the fine in some cases. For example, the driver of a vehicle owned by a legal entity will be fined at the lower limit. If it is not established in the sanctions of the article of the Special Part of the Code of Administrative Offenses, the fine amount is 0.5 basic units (currently one basic unit is Br35 thousand). -0-