Minor road traffic accidents can be resolved by amicable finding of damages in Moldova
21:10 | 01.08.2018 Category: Social
Chisinau, 01 August /MOLDPRES/ – The minor road accidents could be solved by an amicable finding of damages, without police involvement, according to a draft law amending the legislation, positively endorsed today by Government.
According to document, this procedure will be applied in case of an occurred accident only with insignificant material damage by filling in and signing by the drivers of the vehicles involved of amicable accident finding form established by supervisory authority.
The vehicle owners, in case of the amicable settlement of motor vehicle accident, are obliged to immediately notify the accident producer and the intention to resort to this procedure by insurer which issued the RCA insurance policy or "Green Card" insurance certificate (the National Bureau of Motor Vehicle Insurers in the case of a vehicle owned by a person insured abroad).
The Ministry of Internal Affairs (MAI) notes that much of police service time is being taken into account in the case of insignificant road accidents, which have only resulted in material damage. Annually, there are recorded about 11,000 such accidents. Moreover, while the police are waiting at the site of the road accident, the vehicles create obstacles for road traffic, as a result of traffic jams.
In order to claim compensation from insurance company, the injured driver calls the police at the scene of accident to find out the circumstances with the guilt. According to an Internal Audit Report of the General Police Inspectorate (IGP), the expenses (payroll, fuel and logistics) for documentation of a road accident in the case of documentation on trip to its place of production are MDL 200.42 or over MDL 1 million for 5,221 accidents without traumatized persons produced in Chisinau in 2016, and the costs assessed at national level amount to MDL 3 million 465 thousand.
The amicable settlement is widely applied in EU countries. Some associations of insurers have developed a European accident finding form. Moreover, an electronic application is used in France. In Romania, the amicable accident finding mechanism, similar to that proposed by MAI, has been in force since 01 July 2009.
The draft amendment to legislation is to be submitted to the Parliament for consideration and adoption.
(Reporter V. Bercu, editor A. Raileanu)
