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Over 2 million uninspected cars on the Greek roads

04 May 2014 / 13:05:11  GRReporter
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Only 10 of the 57 Centres for technical control of vehicles are certified and in operation. The deadline for the completion of procedures for the other centres is unknown. At the same time, the number of uninspected cars is about 2 million, which causes losses to the state to the amount of 400 million euro. If all cars pass vehicle inspection and this 400 million euro (half of which includes fines for delayed inspections) is gathered, the net profit for the state will be 200 million euro per year.

Unpaid fees

Car owners economize not only on the cost of maintaining their cars, but also on insurances. The number of cars driving on Greek roads without insurance is 800,000, of which 250,000 are private vehicles. For 2014, a total of 5.5 million car owners have bought tax discs compared to 6 million last year. The decrease is not entirely due to the removal of cars from the circulation - only 200,000 car owners have returned their registration plates, which means that the remaining 300,000 car owners theoretically should buy tax discs.

A noteworthy fact is that, according to the latest data from insurers, the number of insured cars was 5.6 million last December, compared to 5.8 insured last July. The decrease is due to the fact that car owners are no longer afraid of severe fines for those who drive uninsured vehicles.

The lack of control is what makes car owners go to technical inspection centres for an annual examination. "Besides the cost of the inspection, car owners are afraid of the findings and how much they will cost them," explained Konstantinos Vikas, director of these centres. If the review finds, for example, that the tyres are worn out, the owner must replace them and come for a second time to the examination in order to obtain the document.

Industry representatives explained that the number of those who go for an MOT test increases before long holidays, vacations, in the summer and generally in periods when there is high traffic on the roads. But the fact is that until the police start carrying out regular checks, despite the serious fine of 400 euro, the number of car owners passing technical examinations will not increase.

Fake documents

Besides cars, about 1 million motorcycles are also uninspected. Another scourge in the market includes fake receipts for technical examinations issued at a lower price, and in some cases owners do not know about that. The best way to know whether the examination is legitimate and complete is to receive detailed diagrams during payment.

Databases

A cross-check of databases of the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Finance in order to obtain a clear picture of unexamined cars is still being developed. The aim is to manage to impose fines directly on owners of unchecked cars. This, however, is still not being applied.

Until recently, the main obstacle for the cross-check included state vehicle inspection centres which entered data manually until the end of 2012 and these data are not included in the electronic database. It is a matter of time for the data to be entered and uninspected vehicles to be cross-checked.

The Ministry of Transport, however, noted that besides the problem of the database of state vehicle inspection centres, there is another obstacle which cannot be removed by a legislative amendment. The infringement in question, as well as any other violation of traffic regulations, is certified by the traffic police. Thus, details of the violation cannot be sent if the traffic police have not first imposed a fine.

Tags: cars roadworthiness vignettes fines
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