New Law Requires Drivers to Clear Roadway After Accidents

In order to reduce the risks of artificial traffic congestion, a legislative initiative has been discussed in the National Assembly, proposing a specific timeframe for drivers involved in minor car accidents to clear the roadway.

The draft was presented by Eduard Aghajanyan, a member of the “Civil Contract” faction of the National Assembly. He stated, “Amendments are proposed in the laws on Ensuring Road Traffic Safety and Administrative Offenses, which stipulate that in the case of an accident involving only two vehicles, if the parties mutually agree on liability and the vehicles are technically operational, the drivers are required to relocate their cars to a legally permissible area within a maximum of 20 minutes from the time of the accident.”

According to Aghajanyan, currently, vehicles involved in accidents with two vehicles remain on-site for an average of 1 hour and 12 minutes, which causes serious traffic congestion. The proposed amendment applies to cases where property damage does not exceed the specified threshold of 400,000 drams, and the parties fill out a coordinated declaration through the “Single Window for Auto Insurance” application (ASWA system).

The draft law stipulates that until January 1, 2026, the timeframe will be 20 minutes, and after this deadline, due to technical improvements, it could be reduced to a maximum of 5 to 10 minutes. It is noted that in the future, the application will already include all the data of the drivers involved in the accident, which will shorten the completion time.

The authors of the draft law are the President of the National Assembly Alen Simonyan and Eduard Aghajanyan.