The Czech Association of Carriers (Cesmad Bohemia) has warned foreign drivers that road police will administer fines of up to €380 for what they deem as „excessive overtaking.”
In the Czech Republic, vehicles larger than 3.5 tonnes or longer than 7 metres are not allowed to overtake other vehicles if the speed difference between the truck and the other vehicle is not big enough for a quick manoeuvre.
Last year, the Czech police published a video presenting two situations when a motorcycle policeman thought a lorry driver was overtaking with insufficient speed to make a safe maneuver.
In the first half of the video, we can see that the police officer actually only saw the end of the overtaking manoeuvre, so he couldn’t witness how fast the vehicles were moving when one of the trucks started overtaking. Nevertheless, the police officer asks the driver in the overtaking truck to pull over. In the second case presented in the video, we see even less of the overtaking itself, but the policeman still found the manoeuvre too slow.
According to the video, it seems the Czech police didn’t use any special device or speed camera to measure the vehicles’ speed or the distance between the truck and the vehicle it overtook. Therefore it appears that officers will administer fines based purely on what they see.
How much can someone be fined for making such a maneuver?
Overtaking with insufficient speed is punished the same way as if someone had violated the no-overtaking rule: a fine of 5-10 thousand Czech crowns (about 190 -380 euros) and 7 penalty points. Foreign drivers must pay a deposit on the spot for the fine.
The drivers shown in the recording were fined about 10-10 thousand crowns (about 380 euros) .
The overtaking ban on lorries was in the spotlight of the Czech media and the government at the beginning of last year. The extremely bad weather on the D1 motorway caused huge traffic congestion in the winter of 2018/19 – mainly due to unsuccessful overtaking attempts by some lorries. This unfortunate event resulted in the numerous overtaking bans on Czech roads.
Photo credit @ Wikimedia Commons