The Executive Branch presented a bill to Parliament with the objective of extending the period in which fines expire from five to ten years.. The ten-year period had been included in the traffic law that the government sent to Parliament in 2019, but in the legislative discussion it was decided to reduce it to 5 years. However, now the National Road Safety Unit (Unasev) wants to resume the initial deadline for several reasons.
Marcelo Metediera, president of Unasev, appeared this Wednesday before the Transportation Commission of Deputies, which is studying the project with the modification, and He presented three arguments to defend his position, one of them is linked to the prompt implementation of the point book.
“The points permit proposes a logical sequence of accumulation of points of eight years. So, If in the middle of the period of time the fine expires by the mere fact of prescribing and the event generating the points, both favorable and negative, is the fine, the points also fall. Therefore, the permit project as such somehow loses its validity as an objective of the work plan,” Metediera said in the commission as recorded in the stenographic version.
Currently, at five years it not only prescribes the payment but also prescribes the infraction as such, so it goes against the spirit of the point book which, in addition, handles different deadlines.
When a person goes to get a driving license, Metediera explained, they are given an initial balance of eight points. As time passes and that person has good traffic behavior and does not commit traffic violations from which points are deducted, his or her point balance increases.
The schedule establishes that after two years it goes from eight to twelve; In the three following years it goes from twelve to fourteen and in the three following years it goes from fourteen to fifteen. Therefore, this sequence of point additions has a period of eight years. “If in this process, before finishing it, a person waits five years for the fine to expire, the process of accumulating points is cut off for the time that has passed.“said the president of Unasev.
A second argument has to do with situations that, according to Metediera, some municipalities have transmitted. If a person’s driving license is about to expire or has expired and does not want or cannot pay the fine, and one, two, three years are missing to reach the five-year statute of limitations for the fine committed, that person, said the leader, “He chooses to go outside the system; he is not going to renew his driving license.”
Because? Because you cannot renew your driving license with debts due to fines. So, you choose to wait for the statute of limitations to expire and then go get that driving license. Therefore, it is outside what the procedure and the traffic system should be.
“The third argument is that when a driving license is given for ten years, if the fine expires after five years, I have five years to – let me say this carefully – not take responsibility for my actions in traffic, since I can prescribe that fine for my traffic misconduct because the term of the driving license is longer,” explained Metediera.
“From a road safety perspective, A person will be driving for five years doing what he wants in traffic because from an economic point of view he will not be assuming that responsibility because he has the necessary deadlines to follow that prescription.”, he insisted.
The opposition still has doubts about the text and hopes to go deeper to take a position. Representative Álvaro Perrone even asked the committee whether it would not be necessary to modify the Penal Code, which establishes that fines expire after four years. However, the modification proposed by Metediera points to the traffic law, something already approved by Parliament but with a period of five years.
According to Unasev’s schedule, the points permit must be valid no matter what before September 2027, but Metediera announced that they have been working with the Congress of Mayors and it is likely that it can come into effect before the end of the year.
This discussion occurs in parallel to another that also addresses the issue of traffic fines. A project presented by three opposition legislators was approved this Wednesday in the Finance Committee integrated with Transportation. The text proposes the reduction of the amount of fines for speeding on national routes when they are paid before the year.
