Tougher fines aim to curb traffic accidents

The draft decree on administrative punishment for traffic violations which set fine levels five times higher than current levels to curb traffic accidents and raise people's awareness on traffic laws is expected to be soon approved by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

Ignorance of traffic laws was the main reason for more than 2,500 traffic accidents in the first few months of this year, 16.5 per cent higher than the same period last year, says the National Traffic Safety Committee.

Than Van Thanh, head of the committee's administrative department, said excessive speeds were responsible for up to 15 per cent of accidents and driving on the wrong side of the road was to blame for 27 per cent. However, the origin of these reasons was the alcohol the drivers took before taking to the roads.

Up to 62 per cent of people involved in traffic accidents were under the influence of alcohol, violating the alcohol limits set by the law and more than half of them suffered serious brain injuries.

Drink-driving is the cause of 12,000 deaths in the capital each year.

However, another reason is that the development of infrastructure such as roads or bridges has yet to catch up with the fast increase in the number of vehicles.

Nearly 1.6 million cars and 29 million motorbikes take to the nations roads daily, of which more than 23,000 cars and 426,000 motorbikes were newly registered in the first two months of 2010.

Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai asked relevant ministries to seek breakthrough initiatives to reduce traffic accidents and also emphasised the importance of heightening people's awareness of traffic laws, calling on relevant ministries to focus on disseminating such laws to the people.

Transportation management and the construction of modern transport infrastructure were also included in the measures to ease traffic jams and prevent accidents, said Hai.

The head of the committee, Ho Nghia Dung, has asked the directors of the local transport departments and traffic safety sub-committees to focus on raising people's awareness of traffic laws in the second quarter of the year.

In the future, more methods such as separating motorbikes and cars in different lanes on city highways would be applied to decrease traffic accidents, he said.

The committee also asked the relevant agencies to check traffic lights and signs to help drivers recognise the correct lanes.

Coupled with the dissemination of the traffic laws, punishments would be raised to levels strict enough to prevent people from violating traffic laws, said Dung.

Under proposed changes, the legal alcohol level will drop from 80mg/100ml to 50mg/100ml for motorcyclists, and to zero for car drivers.

Fines will be increased five-fold and if found to be in violation of these limits, car drivers will be fined VND1-3 million (US$55.5-167) and have their licences revoked for 60 days. Motorbike drivers will be fined VND400,000-800,000 and lose their licences for 30 days.

Vu Do Anh Dung, deputy head of the Ministry of Public Security's Road and Railway Traffic Police Department, said that the police would be provided with more equipment to measure blood alcohol levels and more check-points would be set up near bars to measure the alcohol concentration in drivers' blood.

Nguyen Van Duc, head of the city's Traffic Police Unit 2, said that more plaincloth policemen would go on patrols to try and catch the violators.