What to do if a copy of the traffic violation protocol has not been issued

• 1. What documents are needed after an accident? 1.1. If the incident is without casualties
• 1.2. If there are injured or dead

Important facts from the article

1. The easiest way to have all the documents on hand at once for applying under compulsory motor liability insurance is to draw up a European protocol.
2. If the notification is not issued without police officers, then the necessary papers for the accident will need to be obtained either from the traffic police or in court.
3. The traffic police must consider a case of an offense within 15 days, and the court within 2 months, but alas, these deadlines can be extended.
4. After an incident with injured or dead people, you can wait even a year and a half for the necessary documentation.
5. But you can contact the insurance company without having a complete set of documents.

Drivers meet and communicate with traffic police inspectors when they are either checked or held accountable. That is, most drivers received the order right on the spot and continued to move about their business. It would seem that such a procedure should exist when registering an accident, because one of the drivers violated traffic rules, which means he just needs to issue a decree, and everyone will go about their business. Is this how things really are, or will we have to wait for documents after the incident, and then how long, and whether it is possible to speed up such a wait, we will look into this article.

What documents are needed after an accident?

Let us remember that not all road accidents are reported by traffic police officers. Most of them are settled by the drivers themselves on the spot. But when disputes cannot be avoided, or when more than 2 vehicles were involved in the accident, or the liability of one of the drivers is not insured, then inspectors will file the accident.

And the set of documents here depends on a number of circumstances:

• how many cars were involved in the accident - you will have to wait the least amount of time for documents from the traffic police if there were 2 cars and there were no injuries,
• are there any casualties in the incident,
• are there any dead?

If the incident is without casualties

The absence of victims is another condition under which it is possible to register an accident under the European OSAGO protocol. With this registration of the incident, it will be enough for the victim to have a notice of the accident, signed by both drivers, and other documents from the MTPL Rules. Documents from the traffic police are not required at all.

If it was not possible to file an accident in a simplified manner - for example, if there is a disagreement about guilt or circumstances in the incident, then you will have to call and wait for the traffic police officers.

After registering the incident, the victim will need to provide the insurance company with one or more documents from the list:

1. ruling on refusal to initiate a case regarding the APN,
2. administrative violation protocol,
3. resolution on an administrative offense,
4. decision to terminate the proceedings,
5. the court's decision.

A resolution (from paragraphs 3 or 4) or a determination can be issued to you by the traffic police. Perhaps they will be given along with the protocol, if one was drawn up. But they cannot issue both a ruling and a resolution at once - only one is drawn up. Of course, if we are talking about one violation of the culprit.

And it is these documents that most often do not have to wait long - they are drawn up directly at the scene of the accident. But only if an administrative investigation was not ordered - for example, if the culprit disappeared.

If there are injured or dead

When submitting applications to the insurance company after an accident with victims, when both property and people were damaged, you will need to provide both the above documents, which are issued by the traffic police or the court (one or more), and certified papers for compensation for damage to health and compensation for lost earnings . The list of documents on harm to health is specified in paragraph 4.1 of the OSAGO Rules, and on lost earnings - in paragraph 4.2.

Thus, in addition to the ruling/ruling/protocol or court decision, the victim may need to receive payment:

• a report received from a hospital with a specific diagnosis, injury and/or degree of disability,
• forensic medical examination report,
• certificate of disability,
• a certificate from an ambulance, if it was at the scene of an accident,
• certificate of average monthly salary, scholarship, pension or other income,
• any other documents that can confirm your income - even if it is unofficial.

Regarding the last point, there is no need to worry: neither the insurance company nor the courts automatically transmit information to the tax office. Although, if there is an obvious suspicion of an attempt to hide income from taxation, the official is obliged to notify the supervisory authorities about this.

If someone is killed, then persons entitled to this will be able to apply for compensation; more details about them and the necessary documents are indicated in paragraph 4.4 of the OSAGO Rules.

Accident without traffic police

Starting from Friday, October 20, State Traffic Inspectorate employees will stop issuing accident certificates to participants in accidents. This is spelled out, or rather removed, from the traffic police regulations. The regulation comes into force on October 20.

What does this mean for drivers? The problem is that a certificate from the traffic police, as one of the mandatory documents, is specified in the insurance rules.

Since the traffic police will no longer issue such certificates, insurers will have a legal reason to refuse to accept documents for payment of compensation.

Why did such a paradoxical situation arise? Until 2014, a certificate of an accident was indicated in the MTPL insurance rules, which were approved by the government. Therefore, the mandatory issuance of a certificate of accident remained in the regulations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But in 2014, the Central Bank began to approve insurance rules. But he cannot give instructions on the activities of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A conflict arises: the government decree does not provide for a certificate of road accident, but the rules approved by the Central Bank do have one. Three years have passed and the situation has not changed. But only until the Ministry of Internal Affairs discovered an extra document.

The State Traffic Inspectorate has repeatedly contacted the Central Bank with a desire to change the insurance rules and remove the obligation to provide a certificate of an accident. However, I have not achieved any results so far. As a result, the insurance rules now contradict the traffic police regulations.

The two departments have not found a common language, and drivers will suffer. From tomorrow, if an accident requires registration with the help of traffic police officers, then the maximum that the participants in the accident will be able to get their hands on are procedural documents. For example, a ruling to refuse to initiate an administrative case or a ruling to impose a fine. Participants in the accident will be able to obtain other documents in the same manner.

As the traffic police told the RG correspondent, the entire situation will be described as much as possible in protocols, resolutions, definitions and other documents. That is, how many and what cars were involved in the accident, what damage they received. The details of their owners and drivers and MTPL policy numbers will also be indicated. The driver must still fill out an accident report with a diagram of the accident and submit it to the insurance company. The form of this notice is issued when purchasing an MTPL policy.

The law on compulsory motor liability insurance specifies requirements for the provision of documents from the traffic police

As the Russian Union of Insurers reported, the main thing is not the rules approved by the Central Bank, but the law. And in the law on compulsory motor liability insurance, namely in paragraph 5 of Article 11, it is stated that “to resolve the issue of insurance compensation, the insurer accepts documents on a road accident, drawn up by authorized police officers.” That is, procedural documents on the initiation of an administrative case or on the refusal to initiate it will be sufficient. The insurer will receive documents about the accident, drawn up by an authorized police officer.

However, it is worth recalling that the insurance rules stipulate that such a driver must also provide a certificate of accident. It is clear that the law is more important than any rules. But most insurers are guided by the rules.

As a result, the driver may be refused to accept documents on the grounds that, according to the rules, the entire package of documents has not been submitted. Or refuse payment on the same grounds. As reported by the RSA, the Ministry of Internal Affairs indicates that all information about the accident is contained in the completed notification of the accident.

Indeed, the law on compulsory motor liability insurance requires participants in road accidents to fill out forms for notification of road accidents, but this can become the basis for compensation under compulsory motor liability insurance only in one case - when the conditions of the “European protocol” are met, which is confirmed by the signatures of two drivers in the completed notification of the road accident.

Roughly speaking, the fact that in the event of an accident you and your counterparts have issued an accident notice does not yet give you the right to payment.

Yes, the State Traffic Inspectorate explained to its employees that information (MTPL policy number, nature of damage) required by the insurer will be included in the road accident documents. Upon request, the injured policyholder will be issued a copy of such a document, which he can submit to the insurance company.

But the MTPL rules, unless we are talking about the “European protocol,” do not provide for such documents.

Now let's talk about the sad stuff. It is clear that in this situation, insurers will take advantage of an unexpected opportunity to refuse payment.

As a result, the number of appeals to the court will increase. As we wrote earlier, the law on compulsory motor liability insurance does not know the term “certificate of an accident”. That is, the courts will side with the victim.

That is, from Friday the number of lawsuits against insurance companies will increase significantly. Moreover, the number of cases of insurance fraud will increase significantly. After all, it will be profitable to outbid obviously winning claims against insurers.

And in this situation, it will be very difficult to accuse auto lawyers of dishonest actions.

Is it possible to contact the insurance company under compulsory motor liability insurance if you do not have all the documents?

The MTPL law does not contain any prohibitions on contacting the insurer with an incomplete set of documents if you have to wait until the traffic police prepares the missing ones. Therefore, of course, it is possible to submit not the entire list in this case.

If the documents are handed over by the victim or another authorized person in person, then the insurer’s representative is obliged to draw up an act of acceptance of the documents, which will indicate which papers were handed over. Also, on the day of application, the insurer must inform about what documents are missing to complete the complete set. This obligation is spelled out in paragraph 3.2 of Article 15 of the Law on Compulsory Motor Liability Insurance.

If sent by mail or courier, the list of documents must be reflected in the list of attachments in the postal item. After receiving your letter, the insurer is obliged to report the incomplete set within 3 business days, indicating the list of missing documents. This obligation is specified in paragraph 5 of paragraph 1 of Article 12 of the Law on Compulsory Motor Liability Insurance.

Is it possible to deliver the necessary papers later?

Certainly! The missing documents are not only possible, but will also need to be conveyed or sent to the insurer, otherwise he will decide to refuse insurance compensation. But even if he refuses, he will be obliged to return to considering your case after you provide a complete set of papers after you have received them from the traffic police.

Receipt procedure

As stated above, the legislation on administrative offenses provides for documents, copies of which must be issued to the motorist without fail and at his request.

It is necessary to pay attention to the following legal subtlety. Each protocol has a special column that contains information about whether the driver received a duplicate or not.

Based on this, to obtain a duplicate you must use the following algorithm of actions.

1. The motorist must carefully read all the entries that are made in the document about the administrative offense. If the traffic police officer did not give a copy of the protocol and does not allow you to familiarize yourself with it, then it was drawn up without legal grounds, and thus the latter is trying to hold the driver accountable without any legal grounds.
2. You do not need to put your signature in the column where you indicate whether you received or did not receive a copy of the document. First, you must request your duplicate, and then, after receiving it, sign in the appropriate column.
3. If a copy of the traffic police report is not given, and the driver does not sign in the appropriate column, the police officers write in this column the entry “refused to hand over a copy.” Therefore, it is the driver’s responsibility to declare his desire to receive the document in any column of the protocol, where he must write “I require delivery of a copy of the protocol.”

How much to wait?

Obtaining documents after an accident can be divided into 2 options:

1. when all the necessary documents can be obtained directly from the traffic police,
2. when the papers will need to be received (and most often wait) in court.

If there are no casualties

When no one was injured in an accident, it is mainly considered by traffic police officers. An exception will be cases when the violation of the perpetrator must be considered by the court. Article 23.1 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation lists administrative offenses that are considered by the court.

Consideration of the case by inspection staff can also be divided into 2 cases:

1. consideration of the case without an administrative investigation,
2. with such an investigation.

If an administrative investigation into the case is not carried out, then it must be considered within fifteen days. But this is not the maximum period for waiting for documents from the traffic police. The specified period of 15 days can be extended, but not more than by a month.

The period of the administrative investigation is 1 month, but it can also be extended for another month. In practice, it is precisely 2 months that one has to wait for documents when conducting such an investigation. And it is very rarely possible to speed up this process.

After receiving all documents, the court is obliged to consider the case within 2 months. Plus 1 month for possible extension.

The most ideal option for the victim is when a traffic police officer reviews the case on the spot and issues documents in hand. This mainly happens when the second participant does not dispute his guilt and the circumstances of the incident. But sometimes employees simply do not have time to draw up all the papers on the spot, then registration of the accident and consideration of the case can be continued in the department.

If you are sent for a review, then you will receive the necessary documents only after the case has been considered, or at best, on the day of the review.

If there are victims

In this case, you can immediately forget about quickly obtaining documents regarding an accident. Despite the fact that Article 4.5 of the Code of Administrative Offenses states that a decision in a case cannot be made after 3 months from the date of the commission of the APN in a case considered by the court, in practice all this stretches out for about a year.

Therefore, in the case of victims, it is better to contact the insurer with an incomplete set of documents, so that he at least inspects the damaged car in order to record all existing damage from this accident.

Where and who to contact to challenge a certificate of an accident

If you notice that the certificate about the traffic accident in which you were involved does not correspond to the realities, or it contains contradictory information, then you must submit a written request to make the necessary additions or changes to the text of the certificate as quickly as possible.

Important! When submitting an application, you must indicate the reasons for your application. These may be errors in the text, non-compliance of the certificate with current legislative standards, etc. The most important thing is that the application must indicate justified circumstances.

The application must be submitted to the traffic police officer who compiled the document. It is worth noting that changes can be made immediately, but at the same time, any corrections must be confirmed by the personal signature of an authorized person. If it is not possible to make changes to an existing document, then the traffic police officer will be required to draw up a new certificate and certify it in accordance with current legal requirements. After this, the document can be attached to the case file of the traffic accident.

It must be added that often traffic police officers are in no hurry to admit their mistakes, and therefore refuse to satisfy the petition. If you encounter a similar situation, you can challenge the actions of an authorized representative of the traffic police by filing a corresponding complaint addressed to the head of the traffic police unit. If this does not bring the desired result, then in this case it is necessary to involve employees of the prosecutor’s office in resolving the controversial situation.

As practice shows, the most effective way to resolve contradictions with the traffic police is to file a complaint in court. However, it is worth remembering that doing this on your own can be difficult, since filing a complaint must be carried out in strict accordance with the requirements of the law. Therefore, if such a situation arises, it is better to bring on your side a qualified lawyer who will help you achieve justice and protect your interests.

Is it possible to speed up the waiting process and what should I do?

If you need to obtain documents from traffic police officers, you can try to speed up this process. To do this you need the following.

1. At the scene of the accident, convince the second participant in the accident to agree with the guilt and circumstances of the incident. In this case, you will not have to wait for anything at all, and you will be given a copy of the decision on the same day.
2. If there is a video recording of the collision or the mechanism of the accident is beyond doubt, you can convince the traffic police officer to consider the case right on the spot and issue the necessary documents.
3. If the second participant does not appear for the analysis, then petition the inspector in writing to consider the case in his absence, since he will be duly notified of the date and time of the consideration of the case (if any).

It is unlikely that the court will be able to speed up the consideration of the case, but sometimes you can independently serve subpoenas or court requests and collect responses to such requests. In this case, the review period may be reduced, and you will not have to wait long for the paper.

Procedure for delivering the protocol

In order to understand the situation if the traffic police were not given a copy of the protocol on violation of traffic rules, you must first of all carefully study the norms of the Code of Administrative Offenses (COAP).

According to its norms, all parts of the protocol (copies thereof) must be issued without fail or at the request of the motorist.

The list of mandatory protocols issued to the driver includes the following documents:

• a document confirming the removal of the driver from driving the car if he violates traffic rules;
• a document confirming the inspection (inspection) of the vehicle, with a list of seized items and documents;
• a copy of the traffic violation protocol;
• a copy of the protocol on the administrative detention of the driver.

Therefore, if the traffic police inspector did not give a copy of the protocol on the above actions, this is equated to gross violations of the rights of the motorist, and is one of the legal grounds for issuing a decision to cancel the protocol on an administrative offense.

The list of documents that can be issued only at the driver’s request includes the following:

• a document confirming the delivery of the car to a penalty area or other temporary storage place;
• a copy of the protocol on the offense committed.

Despite the fact that these documents are issued only at the request of the motorist, if they did not give a copy of the traffic police administrative violation protocol, and the motorist insisted on this, this is also a violation of the motorist’s rights and a complaint is filed against these actions.

You need to remember that if a traffic police officer did not issue a copy of the report, and the driver insisted on this, you can file a justified complaint against him with the prosecutor’s office, which is obliged to conduct an appropriate check and bring the police officer to disciplinary action.

What’s wrong with the documents issued by the traffic police?

Copies of the accident scene inspection protocols and the APN resolution are issued to the accident participants upon request. If they forgot to ask for documents, they will have to go to the traffic police department. But this is not so bad, according to representatives of the Russian Union of Auto Insurers, the main problem is the lack of information about the examination for alcohol intoxication in other documents, since it is not included anywhere else. A car crashed into you at an intersection, the driver can barely stand on his feet, he refused to be examined - it is obvious that the truth is on your side and you are entitled to an insurance payment. But proving this will be more difficult than before.

Drivers are also afraid that inspectors will not describe in detail all the damage to cars in other documents - they are not interested in this. But the size of the payment largely depends on this description.

Procedure for obtaining a copy of the protocol

Let's consider what to do if the traffic police inspector did not issue a copy of the protocol.

It can be obtained as follows.

1. At the place of composition. To do this, in the “explanation of the violator” column, the driver must write that he does not agree with the claims of the traffic police officer, and insists on receiving a copy of the protocol and all the documents that are attached to it. They can even be photographed with a phone or camera, if the police permit, then a special note is made about this action.
2. If traffic police officers did not provide a copy of the protocol during registration, and at the same time, for this violation of traffic rules, the decision to impose an administrative penalty is made by police officers, you need to send an official request to their address. In it, indicate that the driver requires that official duplicates of all protocols and other documents be provided to him for review, or indicate the date when they will be provided to him personally. If the demand is not satisfied, then failure to send the protocol is grounds for canceling the decision under the Code of Administrative Offenses.
3. In cases where the right to fine a driver belongs to the court, you can obtain copies of all documents by drawing up a written request to familiarize yourself with the materials of administrative proceedings. For the court, this will be additional evidence that the motorist was denied his right to effective defense.

Cancellation of certificates: drivers and insurers in shock

The news provoked a stir among car owners who are confident that insurance companies will now refuse to pay them compensation. The issuance of certificates was canceled by order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but the law “On Compulsory Motor Liability Insurance” still contains a clause stating that this document must be provided. Federal law has greater legal force than a ministerial order, so insurers have the right to adhere to it.

The Russian Union of Auto Insurers was not pleased with the changes in the registration of road accidents. It is not clear what to do if the client can no longer provide the entire package of documents for compensation. Where can I get information about the incident to calculate the amount of payment? It is indeed easier for insurers to refuse payment than to engage in investigations for which they do not have the resources.

Grounds for cancellation

In order to achieve a decision to cancel an administrative protocol, it is necessary to effectively protect your rights, both during its preparation and consideration.

According to the legal practice of considering this category of cases, you can obtain a decision to cancel the protocol if the driver proves three legal facts:

• no violation of traffic rules, that is, his actions did not entail an offense, and were lawful in a particular situation, which is why there are situations when the traffic police were not given a copy of the protocol, since it was completely falsified;
• violations in the process of recording an offense, that is, all requirements for the preparation of relevant documents are not met, columns are not filled in, records do not comply with the requirements of the law;
• incorrect drafting of the document, for example, the traffic rules clause is not indicated in the protocol on an administrative offense, and a duplicate of it was not issued.

Also, motorists should know that the legislation provides clear deadlines within which the collected material must be sent to an authorized official who has the right to issue a decision to impose an administrative penalty - this is three months from the moment the violation was recorded.

This is exactly the period given by the Code of Administrative Offenses for bringing a driver to an administrative fine or other punishment.

Therefore, if the traffic police officer did not issue a copy of the protocol, then the driver’s guilt is questionable and you need to try to defend your rights in court.

It is important to remember that if a police officer has brought a motorist to administrative responsibility, he has the right to appeal this decision in court by filing an appropriate administrative claim.

Read in detail how to appeal the protocol and file a complaint.