site.btaSofia Police Launch Major Operation to Expose Drivers with "Questionable Licenses"
Police has launched a specialized operation across Sofia with the aim of identifying drivers who possess driver's licenses "of questionable origin", to use the words of Deputy Chief of the Third Police Precinct, Commissioner Stanislava Todorova. She was speaking at a news briefing here Friday.
She noted that upon completion of the operation, a thorough inspection of all driving schools will be conducted. The Ministry of Transport and Communications will also be notified to carry out a check for potential abuses related to the certificates issued by the ministry and submitted to the Traffic Police for the issuance of driver’s licenses, she added.
Police will be checking "the authenticity of both the driver’s licenses and the certificates issued by the Ministry of Transport and Communications that are used to obtain them", she explained. She added that the Traffic Police has an archive of information related to these licenses, which will also be reviewed. High school diplomas will be subject to verification.
To take the driving test, a driver needs to have finished 10th grade and rumour has it that many high school dropouts somehow obtain a driving licence.
There is no end date for the police operation.
Earlier, the Sofia Directorate of the Interior told BTA that a specialized operation was underway in the Sofia neighborhoods of Fakulteta, Hristo Botev, and others, where police were checking for compliance with the Road Traffic Act, with a particular focus on drivers' qualifications. The said neighbourhoods have a dense Roma population.
While at the news conference the police chiefs did not make any connection, the operation comes in the wake of a shocking car crash in central Sofia in the small hours on Friday where a high-performance car rammed into a night bus waiting on red light, killing its sole passenger and sending the driver and a passenger from the car to hospital in critical condition. Videos of the crash on social media show the car virtually flowing over the street crash barrier into the bus window.
It transpired that the driver obtained his driving licence two weeks ago, on August 1.
The 21-year-old driver has already been charged and remanded in custody but is in hospital with a broken arm.
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