The Verkhovna Rada proposes to record the mileage at each registration and re-registration of cars

The authors of draft law No. 10173 , which was recently registered in the Verkhovna Rada, mentioned the problem of "rolls" of mileage in cars. And although this is not mentioned in the explanatory note to the document, according to a study by the Institute of Auto Market Research, at least 40% of cars in Ukraine have or had interference with odometers, most often to reduce its indicators, in some cases to overestimate them.

What is proposed in the new document?

There are two main ideas, and the first of them is to enshrine in the legislation the norm on fixing the odometer readings of cars during registration and re-registration. The second is a proposal to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Cabinet of Ministers to ensure the possibility for individuals and legal entities to obtain information about the previously recorded mileage from the registers of foreign countries by the VIN code of the car, even before it is imported into Ukraine.

Although these proposals are covered concisely and quite concretely, there are more questions about them than there are currently answers. Only recording the mileage, and even if it turns out to be less than what was previously recorded, does not involve any sanctions (for example, a ban on re-registration or a fine), and this, as you know, makes the norm ineffective. After all, for example, if one of the laws only prohibits drivers from exceeding the speed limit, but at the same time does not impose a fine for such a violation, it is unlikely that such a mechanism will have an impact on anyone.

There is also a question regarding the obligation of the Cabinet of Ministers to create (in a relatively short period of time — only 2 months) access to foreign transport registers, where with the help of the VIN code it would be possible to obtain information about the mileage in the country of the previous registration of the car.

What are the nuances?

Data only on the last recorded mileage is not enough — after all, the "twist" could have occurred before the recording, and not just one. Therefore, it is worth having the entire history of fixations of odometer readings, but there is no such clarification in draft law No. 10173. But it is worth paying attention to two things :

1. There are many foreign registries, all of them have different content and different coverage by geography (for example, CAFRAX is mostly for cars from the USA, CEBIA for European cars), not every country provides for mileage recording at the state level.
2. All these registers operate on a commercial basis, which means for the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine the creation of a similar reference service either at the expense of taxpayers (but with free inquiries) and for a considerable budget, or as a commercial product that will duplicate existing services, but, obviously, it will more expensive, because it needs to be developed and maintained, and it will only be able to resell data from other services that are already available.

Therefore, despite the urgency of the issue of fraud regarding car mileage in Ukraine, draft law No. 10173 is unlikely to be able to fully prevent this phenomenon.

So what to do?

At the same time, it is worth mentioning another document registered in the Verkhovna Rada back in 2020, namely draft law No. 4039, which could really effectively combat mileage fraud. In addition to the regular fixation of odometer readings, this decision provides for sanctions (fines) for "winding up" the mileage, interfering with the work or stopping the odometer, contains "fuses" for those who need to replace the instrument panel and for old cars where the meter may overflow. The practice of overstating mileage to reduce customs payments and many other important details are taken into account. The authors of this document did not forget about the "specialists" who offer mileage "correction" services for an appropriate tariff.

So, if the issue of preventing "twisting" mileage in cars is again raised in the Parliament, according to the experts of the Institute of Car Market Research, they should pay attention to the already existing comprehensive proposal, created with the participation of a number of experts, and which promises a much greater effect than simply fixing mileage and "access to foreign registers" which is unlikely to be implemented in practice.

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