Recently adopted changes to the Road Traffic Safety Law (Zakon o sigurnosti prometa na cestama) are coming into force today, so here are the most significant changes and the new traffic fines you might come across if you find yourself driving without full compliance with the law today.
The point of almost all of those changes is that the traffic violation fines have been increased. The idea behing the increase is, as the Ministry of the Interior says, to increase the level of safety, but also to raise the level of traffic culture in Croatia, index.hr writes.
There are 8 wrongdoings in traffic that will cost you 20,000 kuna (around 2,700 €):
1) driving at 50 km/h over the limit within an inhabited area,
2) driving in a forbidden direction on a highway or any other road,
3) going through a red light on purpose, without reducing speed, or going through two or more red lights,
4) refusal to take a drug or an alcohol test,
5) driving under the influence of alcohol (over 1,5 g/kg) or under the influence of drugs,
6) driving before obtaining your driver's license,
7) driving while the driver's license is suspended because of "traffic points",
8) driving while the driver's license is suspended for other reasons.
(Please don't do any of the above no matter what the new traffic fines are.)
If you repeat any of those offenses, your license will be suspended for a longer period after that - 6 months for the second time you do it, and at least a year if you repeat three or more times. Also, if you keep repeating the offense, the police are given the authority to temporarily seize your vehicle. Hit-and-run behaviour will also be fined with 20,000 kuna in the future, if there are injured individuals in the accident. If you just bumped someone and nobody was hurt, but you left, the fine will be 7000 kuna. Both of those will get you some additional traffic points.
If you manage to get to 12 such points, you won't be able to apply for your driver's license for two years (this is even stricter for young drivers, as for them the cut-off is at 9 points).
Some other behaviours that are considered to be especially dangerous have also gotten increased new traffic fines, so now you'll pay a thousand kuna (around 150 €) for not having your seatbelt on, using your phone and driving recklessly with children in the car.
A change that probably doesn't matter much to our summer guests is that from now on, the law says that the lights on the car need to be on at all times during the day in the period between November 1st until March 31st. The fine for not having the proper winter gear has now been increased, and the driver's obligations during winter-time have been explained in a better manner.
