Comparative analysis of criminal legislation of some European countries and Russia in the area of transportation safety

Abstract

The subject of this research is the current criminal legislation of a number of European countries and Russia in the area of ensuring transportation safety. Analysis is conducted on legislation of the countries with different legal systems (France, Germany, United Kingdom, and Poland). Special attention is given to the norms that determine the elements of specific offenses. The article also analyzes the penalties that can perform a function of ensuring transportation safety. The author draws parallels between foreign and Russian criminal legislation, outlines their strengths and weaknesses. Due to the rapid development of unmanned vehicles, foreign legislation is examined from the perspective of responsibility for harm inflicted by their usage. The author formulates a number of theoretical conclusions along with practical recommendations targeted at improvement of national criminal legislation. It was established that criminal legislation of the countries under consideration contains the norms aimed at ensuring transportation safety, which relate simultaneously to the description of specific offences and penalties thereof. In many countries, the elements of such offences are differentiated in accordance to various legislative acts. In foreign countries, the elements of offences related to damage or demolition of vehicles or other objects of transport infrastructure are formulated as formal, i.e. they do address any consequences as a mandatory element. Stationary platforms, which play an important role in transport infrastructure, serve as the subject of infringement on transport infrastructure objects. It is underlined that the indicated European countries establish stricter responsibility for the alcohol-related transport crimes than the Russian legislation. There are no special criminal legal norms applicable to unmanned vehicles in the considered legislation.