Traffic police will not greet drunk people?

The Ministry of Public Security has just completed a draft Circular regulating the duties, powers, forms, contents and procedures for patrolling, controlling and handling administrative violations of road traffic by the Traffic Police, including 3 chapters and 16 articles.

Traffic Police force of Tan Ky district patrols and controls in the area. Photo: Minh Chi

The draft will collect public comments until December 2, 2019.

The draft will replace Circular 01/2016. Compared with the current regulations in Circular 01/2016, the draft has a number of changed and supplemented regulations.

Clause 1, Article 9 of the draft Circular stipulates the duties, powers, forms, contents and procedures for patrolling, controlling and handling administrative violations of road traffic by traffic police. Traffic police are only allowed to stop vehicles for inspection in the following four cases:

The first,directly detect or through professional technical equipment and means detect and record violations of road traffic laws;

Monday,Implement orders, plans for general vehicle control, plans, and solutions for traffic safety and handling of violations according to topics approved by competent authorities;

Tuesday,There is a written request from the head or deputy head of the investigation agency; a written request from a relevant competent authority to stop the vehicle for inspection to serve the work of ensuring security, order, fighting against crime and other violations of the law. The written request must specifically state the time, route, vehicle stopped for inspection, handling, and participating forces;

Wednesday,reports, reflections, and denunciations of organizations and individuals about violations of the law by people and vehicles participating in traffic.

Thus, compared with current regulations, the case of implementing the plan to organize patrols, control and handle violations, ensuring traffic order and safety by the head of the highway traffic patrol and control department under the Traffic Police Department, the head of the Traffic Police Department or the head of the district-level police or higher is not considered a case where the Traffic Police is allowed to stop vehicles for inspection.

The draft also stipulates that traffic police will not greet drunk people.

According to the draft Circular replacing Circular 01/2016, after giving the command and the vehicle to be controlled has stopped at the correct location, the assigned traffic police officer will stand at a safe position to notify the vehicle occupants to take safety measures, get off the vehicle and present the required documents.

When the driver gets out of the vehicle, the traffic police on duty must salute according to the People's Police Regulations, except in cases where they know in advance that the driver has committed an act that shows signs of a crime, committed a crime in flagrante delicto, is wanted for a warrant, or has uncivilized behavior, or used alcohol or other stimulants.

After greeting according to regulations, the traffic police greet and make a verbal request for control: "Hello, sir (madam, sir, madam...), please let us check your relevant documents and control your vehicle."

When receiving documents, traffic police must inform the driver and passengers of the reason for the inspection, then carry out inspection of the contents according to regulations.

After checking, the traffic police must inform the driver and passengers of the results, violations, and handling measures and say: "Thank you for cooperating with the traffic police to ensure order and traffic safety."

These contents are only regulated in internal documents of the police force and are not widely disseminated to the public.

In addition, Article 12,The draft Circular regulating the duties, powers, forms, contents and procedures for patrolling, controlling and handling administrative violations of road traffic by traffic police clearly states that traffic police operate and use professional technical equipment and means according to the provisions of law to detect and record images of violations by people and vehicles, and organize control and handle violations according to the provisions of law.

Drivers are responsible for cooperating with requests for inspection and control through technical equipment and vehicles of traffic police.

Through the monitoring system, speedometers, and recording devices, detecting violations of people and vehicles, traffic police must organize forces to immediately stop vehicles to control and handle violations.

In case the violator requests to see the images, recorded results, and collected information about the violation, then let them see if there are images and recorded results collected on the spot; if there are no images or results, then guide the violator to see the images and recorded results collected when handling the violation at the unit's headquarters.

In case the vehicle cannot be stopped immediately, the traffic police will verify and send a written notice to the vehicle owner, requesting the violator to go to the police station where the violation was discovered to resolve the matter, and at the same time update the information of the violating vehicle on the Traffic Police Department's website.