📋 Tender Overview
With the entry into force of legislative changes in January 2024 that allow department of environmental protection officials to stop passenger and freight cars, buses and inspect car pollution on the roads, departmental specialists have prepared a vehicle pollution control memo that answers the most frequently asked questions from the public.
The memo presents in detail the process of stopping and checking cars, provides information on how the driver will need to behave if environmentalists identify cases of excess pollution, answers other relevant questions.
Validity of the vehicle roadworthiness test document
If a vehicle's exhaust emissions exceed the limit values or in the event of any leakage of liquid (e.g. lubricants, fuel) that may cause environmental damage or endanger other road users, the validity of the mandatory roadworthiness test document for vehicles will be deleted. According to the updated order No. 2BE-189 of the Director of the Lithuanian Transport Safety Administration , which entered into force yesterday (amendment, No. 2BE-38 of 19 March 2024), the technical inspection document will expire 48 hours after the moment of the census of the decision, but if a liquid leak is detected , the technical inspection document will expire immediately and such a vehicle will no longer be able to participate in traffic.
How to recognize an officer and a service car
It will not be difficult to identify department officers stopping vehicles on the road. Department officials will wear a service uniform with the inscriptions "Environmental Protection", embroidered emblems with the inscription "Protection of the Lithuanian Environment", and upon request they will provide a certificate from the State Control Officer for Environmental Protection.
The crew will have at least two officers who will brake the vehicle during daylight hours by waving a luminous regulator's wand or a reflective circle with a red reflector across the direction of movement, or by telling them to stop and/or turning on the blue beacons of the patrol motor vehicle through the loudspeaker. Full information on how to identify officers and their service cars can be found here.
The first raids are of a preventive nature
Please note that the first car pollution control raids will be of a preventive nature. During these campaigns, pollution of stopped cars will be checked, but drivers will not be subject to administrative responsibility and the validity of the vehicle roadworthiness test document will be destroyed.
Department officials will not check the driver's belongings in it after stopping the vehicle for pollution control. Only if there is a reasonable suspicion that the items in the inspected car are related to illegal hunting, fishing, etc., the officers have the right to inspect the items.
Vehicles will not be braked in the dark.
We remind you that since the beginning of this year, department officials have acquired the obligation to check the compliance of emissions into the environment - carbon monoxide (vehicles with gasoline internal combustion engines), smoke (vehicles with diesel internal combustion engines) with the established limit values, the leakage of hazardous operational fluids (lubricants, fuel) into the environment.
