Used Cars Go East

In the first two months of 2007, the interior ministry recorded a record 46 percent rise in car registrations as an additional 34,677 second-hand vehicles and 8,723 new ones joined the whirr on Bulgaria's already busy roads.

Traffic in Europe's poorest newcomer is dominated by cars that Germans and Italians used to drive ten years ago and now sell at increasingly cheap prices.

Meanwhile, new car sales are expected to decrease for the first time in years, leaving dealers apprehensive.

Used cars hard on the environment

The influx of old cars and the lack of strict technical control are sure to spark an environmental catastrophe, Stoyan Zhelev, the chairman of the Bulgarian Car Importers' Union, which deals only in new cars, told news agency AFP.

"Cars older than 10 years are the worst polluters," said Zhelev, "and while Germany and Italy are imposing ever stricter environment norms on old cars, our country runs the risk of becoming Europe's car dump."

"We pay with our children's health problems and frequent deaths in car accidents," he added.

Every day, thousands of old vehicles wait for their new Bulgarian owners in Sofia's largest open-air car market in Gorublyane. Some of these are so ancient they have long been taken out of circulation in their countries of origin.

Shady dealers and ailing infrastructure

The surprisingly short mileages rarely correspond to the age of cars, but dealers have a ready-made answer: "The car belonged to an old lady."

Customers will always run the risk of being ripped off here if the authorities do not apply stricter regulations and control, said Anastas Todorov, chairman of the Association of (used) Car Importers, which includes some 70 small and medium dealers.

"Sales have already risen sharply, since many people have hurried to buy a car before the government implements its plans to introduce higher environmental taxes for the registration of old vehicles," Todorov said.

"Car prices will also drop by 10 to 15 percent in the second half of the year after we sell stocks imported back in 2005 and 2006," he added.

"There are 520 cars for every 1,000 residents in Sofia -- a ratio the municipal authorities expected to reach in around 2020. At the same time, the infrastructure remains as it was back in 1977," said transport expert Georgy Popchev of the Sofia-based Center for Economic Development.

In Sofia, where all the major boulevards converge downtown and the pothole-filled ring road is the frequent site of accidents, traffic jams have become a part of daily life and occur at all times of the day.

Parking spaces are so scarce that drivers line their cars along the sides of streets or leave them on sidewalks.

Plans for improvement

"The only solution is improving public transportation and city planning," Popchev said.

Since the fall of communism in 1989, booming construction on the outskirts of the ever-growing city has not been matched by projects to develop transportation, he added.

Sofia municipal authorities plan to pour some 800 million euros ($1.07 billion) -- mainly money from European funds -- into improving infrastructure.

There are plans to construct two-level roads, complete and extend the single metro line and widen the ring road.