Drunk drivers pose a danger to others. However, anyone can find themselves in their place. Sometimes drivers who are victims of deception or error are put on trial.
You don't want anyone to get a ticket for driving while intoxicated.
Situations in life are different. What will happen to a careless driver when driving while intoxicated?
The laws of the Russian Federation (administrative and criminal codes) provide sanctions for this offense.
When is a fine imposed for driving while drunk?
The administrative regulations adopted by the State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, which was approved by order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, give the traffic inspector the right to “blow” the driver if the following signs are detected in the latter:
- Breath with a distinct alcohol odor;
- Unusual color of the skin of the face (very red);
- Unsteady gait and posture;
- Strange behavior;
- Incoherent speech.
If there are sufficient grounds to suspect the driver of drinking alcohol, the traffic police inspector has the right to require him to undergo an on-site medical examination using a breathalyzer.
This technical tool makes it possible to find out whether alcohol vapor is contained in the exhaled air. The Code of Administrative Offenses contains a clear definition of the state of intoxication. A driver is considered drunk if there is more than 0.16 mg of alcohol in one liter of exhaled air.
If a motorist refuses to “purge” on legal grounds, then the traffic police inspector is obliged to confiscate his driver’s license and send him for a medical examination to a laboratory.
In a medical institution, there are alternative methods for determining the driver’s condition: by analyzing physiological fluids (blood, urine).
The legislation of the Russian Federation currently does not have a clear criterion for these indicators, however, if compared with the established limit for exhaled air, the result will be from 0.3 to 0.35 ppm in the blood.
In this case, 0.05 is the difference that arises due to the physiological characteristics of a particular organism.
If the presence of alcohol in the blood is confirmed, the information is sent to the court. During the consideration of the case, the magistrate makes a decision on the guilt and responsibility of the driver for this offense.
Punishment for drunk driving without a license. Read here what the punishment is for handing over the steering wheel to a drunk driver.
Find out what awaits a driver for driving without a license after deprivation by following the link:
What is the punishment for drunk drivers?
Sanctions for driving under the influence of psychotropic and intoxicating substances are particularly strict. So, for example, for driving a car in a “cheerful” state, the driver does not have the right to pay a fine at a discount during the grace period for paying fines.
Any case of driving while intoxicated entails a single penalty - a fine of 30 thousand rubles and deprivation of rights for a period of one and a half to two years. The period for which a person will be deprived of a special right is determined within the framework specified, depending on the accompanying circumstances that may mitigate or increase the punishment.
There are some situations that raise questions among motorists. Every motorist should know that:
- If the person who has assumed the responsibility of driving a vehicle while intoxicated does not have a driver’s license at all, he does not pay a fine. The measure of influence in this case will be limited to administrative arrest for 15 days (if arrest is impossible for any reason, a fine of 30 thousand rubles will be applied).
- A motorist who refuses a medical examination is considered to be a drunk driver. The logic of the traffic police officers is simple: if a person refuses to confirm his sobriety, he is trying to hide the fact of intoxication. The driver will be required to pay a fine and will be deprived of his license.
- If the owner of the vehicle handed over control to a drunk motorist, punishment will be provided for both persons. This means that both the owner of the vehicle and the person driving this vehicle will face a similar punishment (a fine of 30 thousand rubles and deprivation of rights for 1.5-2 years).
Particular attention should be paid to the question of what the driver faces for repeated driving under the influence of alcohol. A secondary violation is considered a gross disregard for applicable auto laws.
For this reason, the following sanctions may be applied to the driver:
- 480 hours of compulsory work;
- imprisonment for 2 years;
- a fine of 200 to 300 thousand rubles;
- forced labor for 2 years;
- a fine in the amount of the violator’s salary for a period of one to two years.
Penalties for repeat violations will be determined depending on the severity of the consequences and other conditions. It is important to note that repeated drunk driving is not an administrative, but a criminal violation.
What is the penalty for driving while drunk?
The driver of a vehicle does not have the right to drive it if the content of alcohol vapor in the exhaled air exceeds 0.16 ppm. This norm is prescribed in Russian legislation.
This value was established for only one purpose - to exclude charges against sober drivers due to the physiological characteristics of the body or the error of the technical means used to determine the alcohol concentration.
In other words, the law does not allow you to drink even a small amount of alcohol with the hope of meeting the limit. Most likely, the device will show much more in this case.
A drunk driver, even stopped for the first time for this violation, will not receive the slightest leniency from an inspector or judge.
An offender for drunkenness risks parting with thirty thousand rubles and a driver’s license for a period of 18 to 24 months.
By refusing a medical procedure, the driver will in no way change the possible punishment. From the point of view of the law, a citizen who refuses to undergo an examination admits that he is drunk. The consequences of this act will be no different from those that apply to drunk motorists.
The law prohibits allowing a drunk driver to drive your car. If this happens, both will be punished equally.
To return the license at the end of the period of deprivation established by the court, the motorist will have to re-pass the test on knowledge of traffic rules and pay off the debt on existing fines. All transactions are carried out at the traffic police department that imposed the fines.
Punishment for repeated drunk driving
Repeat offenders (citizens who repeatedly drive while intoxicated), according to the laws of the Russian Federation, are subject to stricter liability. The offense moves from the category of administrative to criminal.
A driver caught drinking alcohol for the second time in a limited period of time will face the following punishment:
- Revocation of driving license for 36 months;
- Fine up to 300 thousand rubles;
- Up to 24 months in prison.
A significant tightening of liability for this offense occurred in July 2015. Until this time, a drunk driver was prosecuted only under the Code of Administrative Offences. Now repeat offenders face a criminal conviction with all the ensuing consequences.
Hitting a pedestrian by a drunk driver
A motorist who hits a pedestrian will be punished as severely as the last person was seriously injured. For minor damage to health, a drunk driver will get off with a fine and deprivation of his license.
If a pedestrian is killed or seriously injured, the drunk motorist will be prosecuted.
What threatens the driver in this case:
- For causing serious harm to the health of the victim - imprisonment for up to four years. There is an alternative option: compulsory work for three years. In addition to the above, he will be deprived of his driving privileges for up to 36 months;
- If one person died as a result of a collision, then the prison term cannot exceed 7 years with simultaneous deprivation of the right to drive a vehicle for three years;
- An accident that takes more than one life due to the fault of a drunk driver will result in a maximum of nine years in prison for him. At the discretion of the court, this punishment is replaced by five years of compulsory labor with deprivation of driving license for 3 years.
If you carefully study the Criminal Code, it is easy to notice that it contains only the upper limit of the actual terms of imprisonment. As a result, there are many precedents when a drunken culprit in a fatal accident receives only a suspended sentence and remains at large.
Deputies are already working to eliminate this gap in the legislation. The Criminal Code will be amended to specify, in addition to the maximum, minimum prison terms for such offenses.
Since mid-2015, a new legal norm began to apply. It significantly tightened the liability of car owners repeatedly detained for driving while intoxicated:
- A fine of two hundred to three hundred thousand rubles;
- Compulsory work for a maximum of 2 years;
- Imprisonment for a maximum of 2 years.
A bill to toughen penalties for drunk driving has been introduced to the State Duma
In accordance with this bill, a second part will be added to Article 264.1 of the Criminal Code. Under it, those who have already been tried under this article will be held accountable, but this did not help, and the person again got behind the wheel while intoxicated.
Also, under the second part, those who have previously been prosecuted for committing an accident while intoxicated, in which people were seriously injured or died, will also be judged. Such drivers will face a fine of 300 to 500 thousand rubles, or correctional labor for up to 2 years, or restriction or imprisonment for up to 3 years. And all this with a ban on engaging in certain activities for 6 years. That is, after serving their sentence, they will not be able to drive for all these years.
Let us remind you that a driver caught driving while drunk for the first time or who refuses a medical examination will be deprived of his license for a period of one and a half to two years with a fine of 30 thousand rubles under the Administrative Code. If he gets drunk again into the hands of inspectors, he will already receive a criminal record under a criminal article, which provides for punishment from a fine of 200 thousand rubles to a real prison term of up to 2 years. What if he was caught drunk again? He faces the same article. Moreover, our humane court only in isolated cases gives a real sentence.
For example: in the Kaliningrad region, one citizen committed 14 crimes under Article 264.1, for which he was convicted four times. In the Astrakhan region, citizen K. was prosecuted three times under Article 264.1 from 2021 to 2018. In the Belgorod region, citizen K. committed four crimes in 2017. In all these cases, compulsory labor was imposed as the main punishment.
And there are also those who committed drunken accidents with injuries or deaths. If, after serving their sentence and the expiration of the ban on driving, they were again caught on the road while intoxicated, they only faced administrative punishment.
The new article should correct this injustice. However, experts doubt that it will stop repeated drunk driving. After all, before driving drunk, such marginalized people do not study the Criminal Code. Severe punishment will not stop them. Other measures are needed that will be applied before such a citizen receives a criminal record. For example, confiscation of a car for repeated drunk driving.
Fine for repeated drunk driving
A repeated violation is considered to be the commission of an offense for the second time within one year from the date of the last disregard for traffic rules. It is a mistake to believe that you can commit such an offense without serious consequences only once in your life. If a driver violated the law in June 2021 and was caught drunk again by an employee in September 2021, he will be subject to administrative liability.
Sanctions for a second violation of the requirement to drive only while sober are prescribed in Article 264.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. This provision also assumes that the punishment applies equally to motorists who got behind the wheel before the expiration of the license deprivation period.
What is the penalty for repeated violation within a year:
- a fine in the amount of 200-300 thousand rubles;
- confiscation of a driver's license for a period of one and a half to three years;
- imprisonment of the driver for up to two years;
- increasing the period of deprivation of a special right to drive vehicles by 3 years (if the driver got behind the wheel before the expiration of the previous period).
The severity of the penalty is determined individually depending on the general danger of the offense and the professionalism of the defendant’s defense lawyer in court.
Fine for driving while intoxicated
Here you can find up-to-date information on the size of the fine in Belarus for driving while intoxicated or in a state caused by drugs and other intoxicating substances.
Driving while intoxicated is punishable by a fine in the amount of:
- with deprivation of the right to engage in certain activities for a period of 3 years - in cases where: [∗] part 1 of article 18.15 of the Code of the Republic of Belarus on Administrative Offenses
- the concentration of absolute ethyl alcohol in the blood or exhaled air is up to 0.8 ppm inclusive;
- the concentration of absolute ethyl alcohol vapor per liter of exhaled air is up to 380 micrograms inclusive;
- with deprivation of the right to engage in certain activities for a period of 5 years - in cases where: [∗] part 2 of article 18.15 of the Code of the Republic of Belarus on Administrative Offenses
- the concentration of absolute ethyl alcohol in the blood or exhaled air is more than 0.8 ppm inclusive;
- the concentration of absolute ethyl alcohol vapor per liter of exhaled air is more than 380 micrograms inclusive.
A fine of:
- with deprivation of the right to engage in certain activities for a period of 5 years - in cases where the driver: [∗] parts 2 and 4 of article 18.15 of the Code of the Republic of Belarus on Administrative Offenses
- drove a vehicle while under the influence of drugs Narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, their analogues, toxic or other intoxicating substances;
- refused to undergo examination;
- consumed alcohol Alcohol, low-alcohol drinks or beer or drugs Narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, their analogues, toxic or other intoxicating substances after an internal affairs officer gave a signal to stop the vehicle or after an accident;
- with deprivation of the right to engage in certain activities for a period of 3 years - in the case of transferring control of a vehicle to a person who is intoxicated or under the influence of drugs Narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, their analogues, toxic or other intoxicating substances.[∗] part 3 of article 18.15 Code of the Republic of Belarus on Administrative Offenses
For reference:
The state of alcoholic intoxication is considered to be the presence of absolute ethyl alcohol in the blood or exhaled air in a concentration of 0.3 ppm or more or the presence of absolute ethyl alcohol vapor in a concentration of 150 or more micrograms per liter of exhaled air.[∗] clause 3 of the Regulations on the procedure for examining physical persons persons for the purpose of identifying a state of alcoholic intoxication and (or) a state caused by the consumption of narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, their analogues, toxic or other intoxicating substances, approved by Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Belarus dated April 14, 2011 No. 497
Repeated driving while intoxicated within 1 year entails criminal liability. In this case, the vehicle is subject to confiscation regardless of who owns it (except for cases where it has left the legal possession of the owner (user) against his will or as a result of unlawful actions of other persons).[∗] Part 6 of Article 61 and Article 3171 Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus
Protocols on administrative offenses can be drawn up by authorized officials of internal affairs bodies.[∗] Article 3.30 of the Procedural and Executive Code of the Republic of Belarus on Administrative Offenses
The amount of the fine is set based on the base amount.
Punishment and fine for driving while intoxicated in 2021
The severity of penalties applied to a drunk driver depends on the degree of his guilt and the nature of the violation. They are spelled out in Articles No. 12.8 and 12.26 of the Administrative Code and in Art. No. 264 UKRF. The nature of the violation and the penalty imposed for it are indicated in the table:
Type of violation | Intended punishment |
Driving a vehicle while drunk for the first time | Imposition of a fine of 30 thousand rubles. and deprivation of rights for 1.5-2 years |
Driving a vehicle while drunk by a person who does not have a license or has been deprived of it for another violation | Administrative arrest for up to 15 days, or a fine of 30 thousand rubles. |
Driving a vehicle while drunk by a person who was previously deprived of his license for the same violation | Imprisonment for up to 2 years, or correctional labor for up to 2 years, or compulsory labor for 480 hours, or a fine of up to 300 thousand rubles. In addition to the above penalties, deprivation of a license for 3 years |
Transferring control of a vehicle to a person known to be under the influence of alcohol | Fine 30 thousand rubles. and deprivation of rights for 1.5-2 years |
Driving a bicycle while drunk | Fine from 1,000 to 1,500 rubles. |
As we can see from the table, the maximum penalty is provided for repeated drunk driving by a person who has previously been deprived of his license for the same violation. It is prohibited for persons who are not sober to drive a bicycle. For this, a fine of up to 1.5 thousand rubles is provided. , but they can no longer deprive a driver’s license for this, even if the cyclist has one.
Penalties for driving while intoxicated
The legislative framework that guides road inspectors when drawing up a decision on a case of driving while intoxicated is presented in the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. Part one of Article 12.8 of the Code of Administrative Offenses contains clear language regarding this issue.
It is worth noting that additional costs will be added to the official material measure of impact. The driver is required to independently pay for the storage of the car in the impound lot and pay for vehicle transportation services. A tow truck will be needed if the drunk driver does not have friends who could transport the vehicle to the right place. The driver himself will not be allowed to drive once the fact of intoxication is discovered.