Hundreds of kilometers of Russian roads stopped in traffic jams because of truckers’ protest action against the toll on federal highways

Truckers protest action against the tolls on federal highways was held on Wednesday, November 11, all over the Russian Federation. The drivers blocked the federal highway Don, roads in Yekaterinburg, Ryazan, Belgorod, St. Petersburg, Bashkortostan, Primorye and Kabardino-Balkaria, Joinfo.ua reports with the reference to TV channel Dozhd.

Truckers are demanding the complete abolition of the payments, imposed by the Government. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree, reducing the fee from 3.06 to 1.53 rubles per kilometer. But the chairman of the trade union of professional drivers, Alexander Kotov, said that this measure will not solve the problem. Instead, drivers apprehended it as a “handout.”

Along with the innovations of the highway tolls, the drivers pay excise tax for fuel, and under the new rules they should install an on-board device “Platon”, which will register the distance. According to the truckers all together it seems to them as “triple transport fee.”