In Irkutsk, for the first time in criminal justice history, a reckless minibus driver was convicted for sending out a faulty bus with bad brakes and worn tires. The court found these trips endangered passengers lives, and the driver can no longer work on the route. This unprecedented sentence followed a series of serious minibus accidents and tightened oversight of carriers.

In the regional center, a reckless minibus driver has been convicted. This is the first such case in the history of criminal proceedings in Irkutsk.
The convicted driver of Route 13 will no longer be going out on the line. The day before, the Leninsky District Court of Irkutsk handed down a sentence to a persistent violator of traffic rules. He came to Irkutsk from Uzbekistan to earn money. He bought an old bus for work, and there was never enough money for repairs.
Vladimir Salovarov, senior assistant to the head of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation for the Irkutsk Region: “The investigation established that the driver went out on route in a faulty bus. Including with faulty brakes and worn tires. This created a danger to the life and health of passengers. For this, he was repeatedly held administratively liable by the State Traffic Inspectorate. As a result, the materials were sent to the Investigative Committee”
The court decided that the convicted minibus driver will no longer be transporting people in Irkutsk. He was still lucky, investigators say. If it were not for his five young children back in his native Uzbekistan, the driver would have received an actual prison sentence of up to two years.
The sentence for the negligent minibus driver in Irkutsk is an unprecedented case in our region. But in Russia, such violators of the law and order have already been punished. For example, in St. Petersburg, in Novokuznetsk, and in the Volgograd Region. Irkutsk carriers came under close scrutiny from supervisory authorities after several major accidents involving route taxis.
Thus, in mid-February in Irkutsk on Shiryamov Street, when a minibus collided with road equipment through the fault of the bus driver, four people were seriously injured. And in April, nine passengers of a minibus that collided with a foreign car in the Sverdlovsky District of the city were taken to hospitals. Every year in Irkutsk, more than one and a half thousand traffic accidents involving route taxis occur. Hundreds of people suffer serious injuries, dozens die. A sense of impunity allows minibus drivers to drive recklessly and not monitor the technical condition of their vehicles. However, now such violators are under special control not only of the traffic police, but also of the Investigative Committee.