Severe punishment for running a red light, speeding and “boozing”

The new KOK designed by the ministry of Infrastructure includes the maintaining of severe punishment for serious offenses, the rationalization of fines for minor offenses and the reduction of driver’s license revocation time, mainly for professional vehicles.

The changes, proposed by the ministry and vice minister Spyros Vougias through the National Board for Road Safety, are expected to be complete within the next months so that the government can present the new legislation, which will replace the 2007 KOK, before summer 2011.

These changes aim at setting new rules in traffic as the current system is thought to have failed. In many cases it’s too severe, which makes even the authorities turn a blind eye.

«We want to produce a fair system that won’t make discounts as concerns serious offenses, emphasize prevention and be more lenient, especially with professionals who under the current system, get their license revoked for a long time causing serious problems for them» says Mr Vougias in protothema.gr.

According to sources, there will be a reduction of perhaps even 50% for offenses such as helmet, seat belts and not producing a KTEO check card. Traffic police will be relentless with traffic light violations, drunk driving and speeding. As officials state, severe penalties are predicted for those who violate the speed limit inside populated areas.

So far, it has been noticed that even the traffic police adjusts its fines on the offender, understanding that in some cases like the KTEO card the 400 euro fine is unbearable. «These adjustments must be implemented by the state» says Mr Vougias.

It’s not by chance that in many tickets the fines have an orange light violation as the offense, which in reality is probably a red light violation; with highway speed limits, where the upper limit is 140km/h, there’s an abundance of tickets for 139 km/h!

The legislation is expected to embody or supplement KOK rules for citizen categories that were not dealt with up to now, like safe pedestrian movement, people with mobility issues or on two wheels (bikes and motorbikes). It will also provide a review of driver license validity and renewal procedure.