Trucks lined up at a toll station on National Highway No.5 on September 4.
The incident, together with the gathering of hundred of local people from Van Lam and Van Giang districts in Hung Yen Province to protest against the station, had caused serious traffic congestion in the area. Local people asked for lower toll fees so that drivers would not try to turn to communal roads to avoid the station.
Local people gather to protest the high fee on National Highway No.5 on September 4.
Police in Hung Yen Province said that they had to ask the station to stop collecting fees for about 20 minutes to ease the congestion.
The drivers said that they disagreed with the high toll fee here.
"The road was already deteriorating while they decided to increased the fee, it's not fair," a driver said.
Speaking with Dantri/DTiNews, head of Vietnam Road Administration, Nguyen Van Huyen, said that the drivers of over 20 trucks started to use small notes to pay fees at around 6pm, causing traffic jams on the Hai Duong Province-Hanoi direction.
"We had to sent 200 police to deal with the chaos," Huyen said, adding that this is not a BOT station as many drivers might think.
Drivers had to pay a fee of VND10,000 (USD0.44) when running on the National Highway No.5 since 2003.
Since 2009, the two toll stations on National Highway No.5 were transferred to the Infrastructure Development and Finance Investment Joint Stock Company (Vidifi) for management.
Vidifi raised the toll fees last April, ranging from VND40,000 (USD1.80) to VND180,000 (USD7.60) depending on the vehicle type.
Explaining about the hike at that time, Dao Van Chien, Chairman of Vidifi, said the roads suffer extensive damage due to the number of vehicles they cater to.
It is said that between 15,000-16,000 vehicles, mostly trucks, pass through the station a day.