An opposition party staged a motorist protest in the Armenian capital and elsewhere in the country Tuesday afternoon decrying the terms of the application of mandatory car insurance that will go into force in less than two weeks.

The so-called “motor procession” spearheaded by the Heritage party was held by car owners in Yerevan, Gyumri, Vanadzor and Armavir.

Arriving by cars from three major communities of Yerevan, the participants converged in Brazil Square near the Hrazdan Gorge and drove further to make a 10-kilometer circle around the city center and reach central Republic Square where the Armenian government building is located.

Under a relevant law adopted by the National Assembly earlier this year, all of about 430,000 or so car owners will have to buy an insurance policy costing about $50-$295, depending on the type of vehicle, a driver’s experience and age until January 1 or face a fine of about $140 every time they get flagged down by the road police.

The drivers that participated in the December 21 event tried to be as noisy and visually present as possible by honking and waving Armenian flags out of their car windows. The signs said: “First European Salaries, Then European Insurance”, “No to The Flawed Law”, etc.

For many, an insurance policy will come as an unwelcome expense ahead of the traditionally costly New Year holiday. But government officials and insurers say many of them will see the benefit later as insurance policies covering third-party damage are believed to benefit primarily the relevantly poor class of car owners.

Still, in front of the government building, senior Heritage party member Armen Martirosyan read out the “Civil Request” to the government that was later submitted to the government administration.

“We are not against insurance in principle. This is a common practice throughout the world, but we believe that for a country like ours that has such a level of poverty it is a wrong step. A hasty decision has been made and it does not meet people’s interests,” said another senior Heritage Party lawmaker Stepan Safaryan.

Among the demands of those protesting the measure is “to postpone the application of the law for a year, to reduce the unreasonably high tariffs for insurance contracts set by the Central Bank, to increase the maximum size of compensation, ensuring their reasonable correlation with tariffs, as well as to develop an order of licensing insurance companies and to remove from the law the stipulation of the minimum threshold for tariffs in order to create some free space for competition.”

The participants of the actions in the Shirak, Lori and Armavir provinces presented similar demands.

While mostly brushing aside similar accusations and demands, the government still agreed last week to modify one provision of the law that would cause particular concerns among drivers in rural areas. Many car owners in villages and provincial towns say they use their cars and other vehicles only for a couple of months during the year, mostly during the height of the farming season.

By the new order of car registration approved by the police car owners are now allowed to suspend the state registration of their cars without paying a fee for that and not to buy an insurance policy for this period of time.