Traffic police officers from the Sofia Directorate of the Interior checked nearly 2,000 vehicles and over 2,090 individuals during intensified inspections over the weekend. Law enforcement officers issued 83 administrative violation acts and 920 fine slips, with a large portion of them being for mobile phone use, tinted windows, lack of protective helmets for motorcyclists, and technical malfunctions.
The operation against noisy vehicles, drifting, and aggressive driving, carried out on Friday night, involved teams from the "Specialized Police Forces" and "Serious Traffic Crimes and Investigative Activities" sectors. Within a few hours, 125 vehicles were checked, with ten drivers sanctioned with acts and over 50 with fine slips. During the checks, three cars were taken off the road due to high decibel levels, missing noise-suppression devices were identified, two people were found to be unlicensed, and one driver was caught with 0.67 per mille of alcohol in their system.
In parallel, a total of 13 drivers were sanctioned for noisy vehicles over the weekend. Three drivers received acts for drifting – one in the village of Novi Iskar and two on Cherni Vrah Blvd. Seven drivers were penalized for missing mufflers, and five for excessive noise following a decibel meter test.
On August 23 at 1:40 PM on the Trakia motorway towards Plovdiv, a truck driven by a foreign national was stopped due to a dangerous technical malfunction—a deep crack in the front right tire. During the inspection, the driver presented a specimen of a driver's license but did not provide the required legalized translation of the document. As a result, the tractor unit's license plates were removed, and the document was seized.
The Traffic Police Department also checked 170 heavy-duty vehicles, with 82 drivers penalized for technical malfunctions. Previously, on the night of August 20 to 21, during an inspection of over 140 vehicles, 11 drivers were sanctioned with acts and 55 with fine slips, 20 of which were for tinted windows and 6 for using a mobile phone.