Do you have the right to drive a tiller on public roads in Romania? What the Traffic Police say

A tiller is a motorized agricultural machine equipped with special tools used to prepare soil for agricultural crops.

With a number of advantages and utilities, the tiller is an essential tool in gardening and farming work. Not infrequently we see such agricultural machines driving on public roads. Some homesteaders attach a trailer to them and use them for transport.

Under these conditions, we wanted to find out if they have the right to be driven on public roads, so we asked for a point of view from the Traffic Police.

What does the Traffic Police say about tiller-type machines?

The legal framework regarding traffic on public roads, regulated by the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 195/2002 regarding traffic on public roads, republished, with subsequent amendments and additions, respectively the Regulation on the application of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 195/2002, approved by Government Decision no. 1391/2006, with the subsequent amendments and additions, does not contain specific provisions regarding motor cultivators.

In this context, the provisions of art. 12 para. (1) of the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 195/2002 regarding traffic on public roads, republished, with subsequent amendments and additions, according to which “vehicles traveling on public roads must be registered or registered, as the case may be, with the exception of the following categories of vehicles:

a) vehicles pulled or pushed by hand;
b) bicycles;
c) electric scooters.”

At the same time, according to the provisions of art. 9 para. (1) of the same ordinance, “in order to be registered, registered or admitted to circulation, motor vehicles and agricultural or forestry tractors, trailers and trams must be approved in accordance with the law.”

Also, in accordance with the provisions of art. 12 para. (4) from the aforementioned normative act, “it is prohibited to drive on public roads vehicles other than those that must be registered or registered, vehicles pulled or pushed by hand, bicycles and electric scooters.”

Power cultivator – machine intended exclusively for agricultural work

According to the provisions of art. 122 lit. g) from the emergency ordinance, the competence to establish the technical and methodological approval conditions for the circulation of vehicles on public roads, to certify their authenticity, as well as to identify them rests with the Ministry of Transport, which exercises this attribution through the Romanian Car Registry (RAR) .

In this sense, the point of view of the Romanian Auto Registry is that, in principle, tiller-type machines could be assimilated to self-propelled machines for work (vehicles that are not subject to homologation and for which, implicitly, RAR does not issue the Vehicle Identity Card ), according to the categories of vehicles defined in the Regulations regarding the type approval and issuance of the identity card of road vehicles, as well as the type approval of the products used in them – RNTR 7, approved by OMTIC no. 2224/2020, but they obviously do not meet the technical attestation conditions stipulated in the Regulations on individual homologation, the issuance of identity cards and the certification of the authenticity of road vehicles RNTR 7, approved by OMTIC no. 2132/2005, with subsequent amendments and additions, which is why RAR cannot issue any document for the registration of these machines in circulation on public roads in Romania.

“In the absence of meeting the conditions of technical attestation and obtaining a homologation document issued by the Romanian Car Registry and, implicitly, in the absence of the possibility of registration or registration of this type of equipment, we consider that motor cultivators are intended exclusively for carrying out agricultural work and cannot be driven on public roads in Romania”, concludes the Traffic Police in a statement provided to the ProMotor editorial office.

In the case of detecting a person driving a motorized cultivator on public roads in Romania, we note that this act constitutes a contravention and is sanctioned with the fine provided for in the III class of sanctions, respectively from 6 to 9 fine points.