A traffic offence is defined as an action against the traffic regulations. Traffic offences can be of different kinds (parking offences, speeding, driving under the influence of drugs, driving without a permit, hit-and-run offences, etc.). There are two types of traffic offences: contraventions and offences that are punished differently depending on their degree of seriousness.
Nearly 27 million traffic violations were recorded in 2021 by national law enforcement, ANTAI and municipal police (+8% compared to 2019).
This still includes 5.8 million obstructed or dangerous parking violations. Since 2018, several million parking violations (those concerning non-payment) have become "post-parking packages" and are no longer counted as violations.
Offences (excluding municipal police)
20.2 million infractions were recorded in 2021. These included 97% fines (19.5 million) and 3% misdemeanors (679,238).
74% were speeding tickets, i.e. 15 million offences, of which 218 were misdemeanours.
The remaining tickets are broken down as follows:
- 1.2 million unsafe parking violations, or 6% of all tickets;
- 1.2 million administrative violations, or 6% of all violations, including 132,765 violations for not having a driver's license (20% of all violations), 77,649 for not having insurance (11% of all violations) and 25,732 for false license plates (4% of all violations);
- 1.1 million non-criminal driving offences (including 395,943 cell phone use, 34,483 wearing earphones).
- 650,595 priority violations: of which 353,716 were red light violations detected by the CA - including running tri-color lights and crossings, 123,938 were red light violations outside the CA, and 117,249 were stop sign violations;
- 42,027 BAC violations (under 0.8 g/l of blood);
- 249,539 non-criminal offences for failure to wear user equipment, including 129,032 for failure to wear a seatbelt, 32,178 for failure to wear a helmet and 47,250 for failure to wear gloves on motorized two-wheelers ;
- 158,670 vehicle condition violations (lighting and signs) ;
- 138,634 offences for driving under the influence of alcohol, of which 104,292 are misdemeanours (75%).
- Some offenses are composed of misdemeanors only. These include 181,894 hit-and-run offenses (27% of offenses), 105,582 drug-related offenses (16% of offenses), 35,026 offenses for refusing and obstructing control (5% of offenses).
Alcohol and drug testing
7 million alcohol tests were conducted in 2021, of which 3.2% were positive. 97% of these tests were preventive (initiated by law enforcement) or during violations, 3% were positive.
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77,166 tests were conducted during personal injury accidents (including fatal ones), 8.5% of users tested had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit, a steady increase since 2016. 115,532 tests were carried out during material accidents. They are positive in 10% of cases.
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630,957 drug tests were conducted in 2021, of which 17% were positive. 86% of these tests were preventive or during violations, 19% were positive.
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46,660 tests were performed in injury crashes (including fatal crashes), 6.5% of tested drivers involved in injury crashes were positive for drugs.