Lawyers: appeals of Ingushetian MIA's boss deserve GPO's reaction

Victor Travin, President of the "Collegium for Legal Defence of Car Owners", believes that the appeals of the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) of Ingushetia to road-patrol servicemen to "break windscreens" and "shoot at cars" of those drivers who refuse to remove tinted glasses under militia's order is a cause for the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) to react.

At the request of the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, Victor Travin and his colleague, Vice-President of the Collegium Vladimir Aleksandrov, gave comments on the legality of the raids conducted in Chechnya and Ingushetia to fight against tinted car windscreens.

"The rules of tinting windows are given in traffic regulations," Vladimir Aleksandrov explains. "The tinting thickness of the face windscreen should not exceed thirty percent. When a road inspector stops a car and says that the tinting is above standard, the main question is on how he has defined it. No inspector is able to define light transmission by eye."

According to the expert, the light transmission of windscreens should be checked by means of a special certificated instrument "Blik", which has a verification seal and a permit to be used as measuring; measurements should be taken under certain conditions.

"Pretty often, for example, across the Krasnodar Territory, eyewitnesses report that inspectors just put a newspaper under the glass. If the newspaper can't be read, they conclude that the light transmission is outside GOST (State Standard)," Travin's colleague Vladimir Aleksandrov has added. However, no newspaper can serve as an evidence, he has emphasized, having noted that when using a "Blik" instrument problems arise - it can work correctly only when temperature is over +10 C. Otherwise, according to the expert, proper measurements are impossible.