What are the rules of the road in Russia, when it comes to the vehicles of the super elite?

On the evening of September 25, a Moscow police officer died at Novyi Arbat. He was hit and killed by a siren-equipped car bearing the license plate number АМР (А896МР97), traveling along the median at roughly 75 miles per hour.

That depends on who’s behind and the wheel and where they’re going. Cars with blue sirens have road privileges over other drivers. In certain circumstances, these vehicles are permitted to violate the rules of the road — for example, by driving in the median, running a red light, breaking the speed limit, crossing over the double divider, turning from a no-turn lane, assuming the right away, and so on. However! These special privileges are only active when the driver is hurrying on urgent, official business, and vehicles are nonetheless required to ensure basic road safety. And, of course, the siren has to be turned on and emitting its piercing trademark sound.

Aside from police cars and ambulances, blue sirens are allocated to vehicles in the Federal Protective Service, which guards the president, the prime minister, the speakers of the Federation Council and State Duma, the chairpersons of the Constitutional and Supreme courts, the attorney general, the head of the Federal Investigative Committee, and visiting foreign heads of state. A fixed number of these sirens are also granted to different state agencies, like the presidential administration, the Federal Security Service, the Foreign Ministry, and others. The heads of these groups are responsible for deciding who within their agencies will get a siren-equipped vehicle.

Not legally, no. But in reality, yes. Everyone in law enforcement knows there are special license plate series — like АМР, ААА, ЕКХ, and others — that are traditionally associated with various government agencies. It’s an informal but thoroughly established practice. There are no publicly available documents codifying the allocation of certain license plate numbers and letters to particular high-ranking officials. The law only establishes a color code for the plate numbers: blue for Interior Ministry vehicles, red for diplomatic cars, black for military vehicles, and yellow for taxis. There’s nothing on the books regulating anything about “AMP” or “OOO,” so formally at least the license plate shouldn’t grant any special authority.

In reality, cars with “special” license plate numbers belong to a list of untouchables. According to Petr Shkumatov, the coordinator of the “Blue Bucket Society” (which fights against abuses of siren privileges), the license plate numbers of different high-ranking officials are entered on a “white list” that insulates drivers from tickets — even fines issued automatically by traffic cameras. Shkumatov says this is because the people in these cars are usually officials whom it’s illegal to prosecute for most misdemeanors (though disciplinary action is an option).

We don’t know. So far, it’s unknown if the driver has even been detained. Sources told the news agency Interfax that a military investigator will be handling the case because the car involved in the collision is from a garage that belongs to the Federal Security Service (FSB). If charges are brought against the car’s driver, it wouldn’t be the first prosecution of someone behind the wheel of a siren-equipped vehicle: in 2011, a driver for the governor of Irkutsk was sentenced to a year’s probation and stripped of his driver’s license, after he ran over a pedestrian crossing the street. The victim survived with a brain injury and multiple broken bones.