Azerbaijan needs technocenters

Every year, the State Traffic Police twice warns owners of cars produced in Russia and other countries about the need for a mandatory technical inspection (MTI) of cars. Each of the two groups of cars is allocated months for the passage of MTI. From May 1 to August 1, maintenance is carried out for non-Russian cars.

Every year, during mass MTIs, the press and the public hear complaints from citizens about bribery and extortion at the MTI Centers under the State Traffic Police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Complaints are published in the press. The topic of passing MTI in the Zabrat MTI Center in 2018 was opened in the social portal www.disput.az. The news of this year are reports on the non-corruption passing of cars, if the owners have adjusted the headlights, brakes and engine exhaust beforehand by submitting a certificate of the work done to the MTI. https://www.disput.az/index.php?app=forums&module=forums&controller=topic&id=1141961

The second car maintenance center near Baku works in Khirdalan to check the condition of vehicles undergoing a change of ownership.

Why, if all the cars in the country pass a mandatory technical inspection in the traffic police, are there so many cars on the roads of the country, the appearance of which indicates a terrible technical condition? The answer to this question can be found in the same social portal, where visitors are advised to contact brokers who, for an additional fee, without passing MTI, bring a tag about the technical inspection carried out at home or in the office to the customer. Other brokers meet the drivers at the gates of the Zabrat MTI center, offering to sell them a tag about passing MTI without putting the car in for a check. They did not extort money from Elchin Shukurov on July 27, 2017, although a failure of the handbrake was found in his Lexus. Shukurov, on his own initiative, gave the officer an extra 20 manat and there were no questions. On September 12 of this year, in the same place, Rasul Darker freely received an inspection pass tag, paying the legal cash amount of AZN 20.40 to the cashier.

Consequently, some of the vehicles are not checked in the technical centers of the traffic police in Zabrat and regional centers in other parts of the country. This is reported by the author of the publication in www.qafqazinfo.az

http://qafqazinfo.az/news/detail/bavtomobillerin-texniki-baxis-merkezinden-font-colorred-reportaj-bfont-17663n

The statistical calculations of Turan lead to the same conclusion.

In 2017, 1 million 147 thousand 437 passenger cars were registered in Azerbaijan. Taking into account cars imported this year, we round the figure to 1 million 170 thousand cars. The State Statistics Committee does not report on the number of cars in the capital, although in 2015 it informed that 728,706 cars were registered in Baku. More than half of the country's passenger cars are in the capital, therefore, we agree that in 2018 there were 800,000 cars in Baku.

According to the rules, new cars should not be inspected for four years from the date of production. Cars, from the date of production of which it took from four to ten years, must pass the inspection every two years, and the cars produced more than ten years ago undergo MTI annually. Therefore, we will subtract 200 thousand cars produced less than 10 years ago from the 800 thousand cars in Baku. There will be 600 thousand cars that must be tested annually at the Zabrat technical inspection center.

The Technical Inspection Center of the Main Directorate of the State Traffic Police of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, opened in 2011, has 15 inspection lines, 12 of which are for cars, and 3 for trucks and buses. For a day the Center can check 2,000 cars, the information resource of the Ministry of Internal Affairs informs. In addition, each car owner has the right to pass inspection of his car not only at the place of registration. In particular, cars that are registered in Baku can pass inspection at any of the regional technical inspection centers, and vehicles registered in the regions of Azerbaijan can undergo inspection in Baku.

In fact, reading messages of the drivers who passed the MTI in Zabrat, it becomes clear that the huge and equipped Center is empty most of the day. Of the 12 passenger car inspection lines, three are operating, and by no means the whole working day.

The inspection of a car and the paperwork takes no more than about 15 minutes. That is, if we imagine that hard work is done on three lines for seven hours a day, 84 cars can be checked there. Excluding Sundays and holidays, in 2018, the Zabrat technical maintenance center operates 310 days. Consequently, this year, if we imagine that work on those three lines is at its hardest with a one-hour break, they can check out 26,040 cars there. And about 600,000 passenger cars in Baku should pass technical inspection. To inspect them, they need at least 75 technical inspection lines.

But even if we imagine that all 12 lines in the Zabrat technical inspection center work hard for 7 hours a day, letting one car pass in 15 minutes, then a total of 104,106 vehicles can pass through there a year. And in Baku, we recall, there are about 800,000 cars, of which more than half are checked at the Zabrat technical maintenance center of the Traffic Police annually.

In fact, technical inspection of all cars is impossible, Turan"s calculations show. The access to the roads of Azerbaijan of more than one million passenger cars with tags of technical inspection pasted on the windshield is a fiction, a consequence of a fictitious state procedure, which passes with obvious violations of the law. And this happens within the walls of a law enforcement institution - the Traffic Police Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The Zabrat technical center is not capable of fulfilling its duties, even if twelve production lines allocated for maintenance of passenger cars are made there. It is impossible to verify all cars registered in Azerbaijan without involvement of private technical maintenance centers certified by the Ministry of Interior.

The Criminal Code, with the principle of equal responsibility of the bribe taker and the bribe giver, forces citizens to remain silent without exposing extortionists, and the state, instead of conducting internal investigations in its departments and exposing its own criminals, imposes this duty on citizens. But not everyone in the country can, due to personal circumstances, perform the duties of investigative operatives. Only the state is able to break the corruption of its officials urgently and on a large scale, without keeping such giant feeders as the whole Traffic Police. In the absence of a real struggle, people begin to guess that the conservation of such feeders is necessary for specific people in high positions.

How to change the current vicious practice of fictitious technical inspection in Azerbaijan? Let us refer to the experience of other countries. In Russia, the inspection was transferred to the Russian Union of Motor Insurers, which allows the relevant operators to enter the market, in 2012. Instead of technical inspection tickets diagnostic cards were introduced, which insurers should control when issuing a CTP (compulsory third party liability insurance) policy.

In thirteen US states there is no inspection. The government of these states decided to abandon the procedure for issuing technical inspection cards. Statistics says for itself: only 0.7% of the accidents in the United States occur due to a car malfunction. In most states, the function of conducting a vehicle inspection and issuing diagnostic inspection cards is assigned to private firms, but under state control. The governments of the states are mainly interested in compliance with the CO and engine exhaust parameters. Technical inspection of the car, as a rule, is of a formal nature and practically everyone can pass inspection, as in the U.S. the average age of cars does not exceed 4 years. So, it is not necessary for Americans to buy a vehicle inspection or a diagnostic card directly as we understand this.

In Georgia, from July 1, 2018, the inspection that was canceled under President Saakashvili became mandatory for passenger vehicles. From January 1, 2019, inspection will become mandatory for all cars. To carry out inspections, it is necessary to submit a registration certificate of the vehicle and a document confirming payment for the service. Periodic mandatory inspections should contain at least several elements. Among them there are vehicle identification, brake equipment, steering system, overview, headlights, light reflectors and electrical equipment, axles, wheels, tires and suspension, chassis and their components, other equipment, and harmful effects. You can schedule a visit at https://pti.ge/. For more information, you can call at 14-84. The call is free.

Mandatory inspection of passenger cars will need to be held in accredited service centers. The inspection of passenger cars will cost 60 lari (about 24.2 dollars), and the inspection of trucks will cost 100 lari (more than 40.4 dollars). In case of non-compliance with the norms, it will be necessary to correct the problem within a certain time frame.

It is high time for Azerbaijan to change its attitude to technical inspections and transfer this service sector from the State Traffic Police to private technical services. This will lead to increased vehicle safety and reduced corruption in the State Traffic Police. In particular, it is possible to transfer the powers of initial registration and re-registration of vehicles to the ASAN service in order to remove the possibility of corrupt transactions between employees of the relevant Traffic Police Department and citizens. Why should we need technical inspection during the state registration of cars (in the Khirdalan technical maintenance center), if cars are required to regularly pass inspection? Is it not possible to manipulate documents online, after this technical center sends information about the results of the maintenance to the registration office? There are a lot of opportunities to reduce corruption transactions to a minimum; the Ministry of Internal Affairs just has to set such a goal and show principle.