Nghe An Traffic Police: Resolutely handle oversized and overloaded vehicles

(Baonghean) - Identifying that oversized and overloaded vehicles are one of the causes of traffic accidents and damage to road infrastructure, the Road and Railway Traffic Police Department of Nghe An Police has increased inspection and weighing of vehicles and resolutely handled violations. With synchronous implementation solutions, the department has contributed to limiting overloaded vehicles operating in the area.

Traffic police of the Ho Chi Minh Trail Traffic Police Team check a truck. Photo: Van Truong

With many active solutions and coordination of forces, the Nghe An Police Department of Road and Railway Traffic Police (Traffic Police Department) has gradually prevented and resolutely handled oversized and overloaded vehicles on all national highways passing through the province. Especially on National Highway 1A, the daily traffic volume of transport vehicles is quite large, including many businesses in Nghe An and Ha Tinh that transport cement and construction materials.

Implementing the directive of the Ministry of Public Security, the Provincial People's Committee and the Nghe An Provincial Police on handling overloaded and oversized vehicles, Dien Chau Traffic Police Station (under the Traffic Police Department) has increased its mobile inspection force, stationed on the roads, resolutely handling and forcing the reduction of the load capacity of vehicles transporting cement and construction materials.

Since the beginning of 2017, Dien Chau Traffic Police Station on National Highway 1A has handled nearly 1,000 oversized and overloaded vehicles, of which 600 were oversized and nearly 400 were overloaded; revoked 714 driving licenses, temporarily detained 26 oversized and overloaded vehicles, and collected over 8.7 billion VND to the State budget.

Captain Pham Van Luc - Deputy Head of Dien Chau Traffic Police Station said: Decree 46/CP/2016 of the Government stipulates penalties for drivers of vehicles that violate traffic laws, are oversized and overloaded, with the lowest level being 3.9 million VND and the highest being nearly 100 million VND, which somewhat deters overloading. However, many drivers still ignore it, taking advantage of short intersections to overload. The current difficulty is that National Highway 1 is nearly 100 km long, with 25 km of Vinh City bypass, but the Traffic Police Station 1-5 is thin, when detecting vehicles violating traffic laws, they have to take the vehicles to private weighing stations dozens of kilometers away to weigh the load; not to mention that the Team does not have any off-loading yards or warehouses to store goods, etc., which affects the work of inspecting and punishing violations.

For the Ho Chi Minh route passing through Nghe An with a length of nearly 150 km from Nghia Son commune (Nghia Dan) to Thanh Lam commune (Thanh Chuong). Taking advantage of the many intersections with National Highway 7, National Highway 48, District 15, etc., drivers of oversized and overloaded vehicles often avoid the intersections. The operation of heavy trucks has caused some road sections and intersections to deteriorate and be damaged.

Faced with that situation, Traffic Police Team No. 3 (managing traffic safety on Ho Chi Minh Road) has planned to handle cases of oversized and overloaded vehicles. A representative of Traffic Police Team No. 3 said: From the beginning of 2017 until now, through patrolling and controlling work, Traffic Police Team No. 3 has coordinated with the functional forces of the districts to inspect, detect and record 270 cases of oversized and overloaded violations (mainly carrying construction materials, corn, sugarcane, etc.), paying the State Treasury 1.5 billion VND, revoking the right to use driving licenses of more than 50 cases.

Another hot spot is National Highway 48, starting at Yen Ly intersection (Dien Yen commune, Dien Chau district), ending at Thong Thu border gate, Que Phong district. To effectively handle oversized and overloaded vehicles, Traffic Police Station -148 has assigned forces to block at Sang Le intersection (Tam Hop commune, Quy Hop district), this is the route that trucks carrying white stone often pass through.

To deal with the traffic police, these vehicles often go at 1-2 am to avoid and take advantage of the "shift change" to transport. When detecting vehicles violating the weight limit, the team resolutely draws up a fine record and at the same time requires the vehicle to be brought back to the yard to be unloaded. For vehicles that arbitrarily change the size, after unloading, they must cut off the illegal extension on the spot before they can continue to circulate.

Traffic police of Dien Chau Traffic Police Station are checking a truck. Photo: Van Truong

In recent times, the Provincial Traffic Police Department has regularly arranged and maintained forces and vehicles to increase patrols, control, and strictly handle violations of overloading on traffic routes according to the law.

In particular, the introduction of electronic fixed weighing stations on the routes has helped the police force to conveniently deploy inspections and handle vehicles violating the load limit. The Traffic Police Department has also organized the signing of a commitment not to transport goods exceeding the permitted weight limit for 100% of transport businesses and mineral processing enterprises in the area. Thanks to the application of many preventive measures, some routes that were previously considered "hot spots" of overloading have now been reduced.

According to the assessment of the Nghe An Provincial Traffic Police Department, the number of long-distance vehicles that are currently penalized for overloading is very small. The violating vehicles are mainly carrying construction materials on short-distance or intra-provincial routes. While the self-awareness of cargo owners, vehicle owners and drivers is not high, the current solution is to increase continuous and strong enforcement to control the overloading situation.

Colonel Cao Minh Phuong - Head of the Provincial Traffic Police Department shared: Handling of violating vehicles still faces difficulties such as drivers and vehicle owners finding every way to avoid, even sending people to monitor the activities of the Traffic Police and functional forces, taking advantage of the absence of law enforcement forces to commit violations. Applying sanctions for offloading along the road causes difficulties for inspection forces: such as easily causing traffic jams, lack of vehicles, tools and forces to load and unload goods, lack of yards, warehouses, even in some cases, trucks carrying containers of imported and exported goods with intact "seals" of customs cannot be offloaded along the road... Therefore, it is necessary to stipulate a coordination mechanism for functional forces to have the right to enter warehouses, yards, ports, industrial parks, export processing zones... to check the load right at the departure points of goods.

Since the beginning of the year, the Provincial Traffic Police Department has recorded and handled 7,067 cases of oversized and overloaded violations, including 350 cases of vehicle conversion; revoked 3,981 driver's licenses, temporarily detained 178 overloaded cars, and fined the State Treasury more than 56 billion VND.

Van Truong