Those who worry about Ukraine’s crumbling roads may soon breathe a sigh of relief.
On Oct.1, the law on a new weight control system, designed to detect and automatically fine overloaded trucks, will enter into force.
“Transport market players will start receiving real fines,” the State Service of Ukraine for Transport Safety announced on Sept.30.
The fines for truck owners will range from $315 up to $1,900 depending on how badly the vehicle was overloaded.
Trucks exceeding the upper weight limit by up to 10% will receive the lowest fines, while trucks that are more than 30% overloaded will get the highest ones.
If drivers refuse to pass the weight control, they will be fined about $1,890.
“This is much more effective than an inspector, who is physically unable to check all trucks,” said Nikita Lagunin, acting head of the State Transport Safety Service of Ukraine, Ukraine rail monitoring reported on Sept.30.
“The weigh-in-motion system works 24/7 and processes information right away,” he said.
During its test phase in the past four months, the system detected more than 25,000 violations and issued ‘test’ fines of $32.5 million, which drivers won’t have to pay.
According to the state agency, penalty notices to drivers for those fines “were for informational purposes only.”
Lagunin expects that the weigh-in-motion system will decrease corruption on roads since “the computer will not take a bribe in order not to ‘notice’ the violator.”
On June 28, President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law allowing the government to automatically impose fines via weigh-in-motion systems.
As part of the law, intelligent devices with sensors were built directly into the asphalt to register and fine overloaded trucks immediately as they pass over the sensors.
Overall, there are 48 control points installed across the country, six of which are built into the roads going into the capital.
