Police have caught some people driving without a licence repeatedly even though the drivers may go to prison. Under a new traffic law, a system of penal points was introduced on Czech Republic to replace its representative to EU courts ...
MPs do not pick president in first round, Klaus,Svejnar advance ... Czech roads in July 2006 and driving without a valid licence became a crime.
The driver may be punished with up to 12 months behind bars for it, while the maximum punishment was a 1,000-crown fine before July 2006, the paper writes. The police hoped the stricter law would reduce the number of people who drive without ever having a driving licence, but this has not happened. Vladimir, 21, from the Benesov district, central Bohemia, has been driving without a licence for three years. He told MfD he had tried to gain a driving licence, but failed in the final test and did not give it a second try. Vladimir owns an old Skoda car and drives local roads only. He said the police did not check drivers often and when they did, they were always in the same places and it was easy to avoid them. He said he was not going to undergo driving tests. "It's a loss of time. I can drive and I don't need any licence," Vladimir told the paper. According to a Transport Ministry analysis, 1919 out of 7308 drivers who got 12 penal points, or the maximal number, which resulted in temporarily banning them from driving, had never received a driving licence. The analysis covered the period from July 2006 to March 2008. It also showed that markedly more men than women lost all their points and that men in their early 20s were serious violators of road rules the most frequently. Drivers were stripped of points mainly because of speeding, driving without fastened seat belts and not respecting road signs, according to the ministry's data. Recently, the police, in cooperation with state attorneys, started seizing cars from traffic offenders, mainly for drink driving and driving without a licence. However, the new measure has not been very effective because the police seize only used cars, claiming that the price of more expensive vehicles would be in disproportion to the relevance of the crime, MfD writes. ($1=16.340 crowns)
(Ceske Noviny)
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