Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry announces e-mail address for reporting abuses by traffic police
The e-mail address to which motorists can send complaints about alleged abuses by traffic police was announced by Bulgaria’s Interior Ministry on October 3 2013, a few weeks after new rules on the circumstances under which traffic police may pull over drivers were announced.
The address is [email protected].
The new rules came into effect on September 10, after media reports and official investigations and prosecutions following cases of systematic corruption among Bulgaria’s traffic police.
The rules ban traffic police from randomly selecting cars to be ordered to pull over to the side of the road.
Motorists may now be pulled over only if they have committed a clear violation of the traffic laws, their vehicle is obviously defective, or its cargo could be hazardous to other road users, if the way the vehicle is moving indicates that the driver is drunk or on drugs, or fatigued; and if there is “evidence or suggestion” that the motorist was involved in a traffic accident or a criminal offence.
There has been some skepticism among the public about these new rules, with criticism that they remain so broad and subjective as to permit traffic police wide leeway about stopping vehicles.
The Interior Ministry said that people who want to report alleged misconduct by traffic police must specify the date, time and place, the circumstances, and the details of the team that stopped them – the police number (painted on the bonnet of the patrol car), the vehicle registration number, and the names and/or numbers of the traffic police who stopped them.
(Photo: Bart Groenhuizen/sxc.hu)
