MOSCOW, March 4 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian government has canceled the ban on red turn signals for cars, the head of the government staff said Saturday.
"This norm has been canceled," Sergei Naryshkin said, adding that Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov had signed the enactment that came into force March 1, 2006.
The Traffic Rules were amended in December 2005. In particular, there appeared two new demands: all children under 12 must be transported in special seats, and turn signals must be yellow.
Fradkov said in late January that the amendments were legal, but left little time for car owners to implement them and needed to be corrected. "I have given orders to correct these inaccuracies," he said. "The requirements for turn signals will probably only apply to cars purchased after January 1, 2007," the premier said.
Naryshkin said that after a thorough analysis of the ban on red turn signals, the government decided to cancel it.
He said the demand concerning special seats for children would be applied from January 1, 2007.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin earlier said the idea behind the amendments was to bring national traffic laws in line with the 1968 Vienna Convention on Road Traffic, and international agreements on technical requirements for motor vehicles currently in force in Europe.
At the end of January, owners of American and Japanese made cars fitted with red turn signals held protests in Moscow and other Russian cities. The car owners formed a motorcade on Garden Ring in downtown Moscow, traveling at a slow speed.
"This government resolution infringes upon our rights. People bought cars, paid high customs duties, are paying taxes, and in an hour they have become outlawed," Vyacheslav Lysakov, the leader of an informal motorist movement, said then.
