Reducing traffic jams when there are accidents: Still not fixed!

(Baonghean.vn) - As a vital traffic route with high traffic density, every year on National Highway 1A, the section passing through Nghe An, which is more than 80 km long, there are many traffic accidents that cause many deaths. However, each consecutive traffic accident causes a long traffic jam, wasting time and slowing down the journey of hundreds of vehicles for many hours. So why has the above traffic jam phenomenon not been resolved?

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If the series of traffic accidents between 5 cars crashed into each other and then fell onto the railway, causing a traffic jam on both the railway and the road for 18 hours, from 5:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. on September 4, 2011 at km 408 + 500 in both Quynh Luu and Dien Chau districts, was considered a "record" for traffic jam hours, then the recent traffic accident on January 14, 2012 had a new "record" with 10 hours of traffic jam lasting 20 km from the end of Nghi Loc district to the border of Quynh Luu district. The events can be summarized as follows. At 3:00 a.m., the container truck with license plate 57L 5612 was traveling from Hanoi to Vinh, when it reached km 434 + 050, it swerved to the left and collided head-on with a passenger car with license plate 86L 3092 traveling in the opposite direction. The head-on collision was so strong that the front of both cars were crushed, three people on the container truck and the passenger bus were seriously injured, including the container truck driver.

The traffic jam should have been cleared in just over 3 hours after the mangled van and container truck were removed from the scene. However, the cranes that were brought in were all beyond their capacity to lift the truck because the load was too small. Waiting for another crane with enough capacity to run from Vinh City, 40 km away, would have been impossible to clear the road because both ends were congested.

A traffic accident on National Highway 1A through Nghe An.

Or just two days before, on January 12, 2012 at km 416, a truck with license plate 57L 3195 driven by Pham Thai Son, 40 years old, residing in Ho Chi Minh City, was carrying about 60 tons of goods on National Highway 1A, km 416 + 00 in Dien Hong commune, Dien Chau district, in the direction of Vinh - Hanoi. Suddenly, a woman riding a bicycle from the village road onto the national highway, causing the driver to brake suddenly. In addition, it was drizzling and the road was slippery, so the truck overturned into the field. The accident was very simple, no one was killed, only the truck was towed to clear the scene, but it took 6 hours for the traffic jam to temporarily end.

What do the authorities say?

Lieutenant Colonel Tran Van Huan - Deputy Chief of Dien Chau District Police, who is most present in handling traffic congestion on the route, said: "The infrastructure has exceeded the capacity to allow thousands of vehicles to circulate at high density, but that is not the cause of traffic congestion. It must be said that a long route without a rescue center is an unusual phenomenon on National Highway 1A. Especially the "hot spot" where traffic accidents often occur in succession."

Lieutenant Colonel Tran Dinh Khuong, Head of Traffic Police Team 5/1, said that the cause was partly due to the awareness of traffic participants. Every time there was an accident, they would weave in and out, not yielding, leading to not being able to move forward or backward, causing congestion. In addition, on the route, there were many homemade, oversized, and overweight vehicles that took up too much space while in circulation, so congestion was inevitable.

To quickly resolve the congestion phenomenon whenever a traffic accident occurs, the construction of a large-scale rescue center as mentioned by Lieutenant Colonel Tran Van Huan is reasonable and necessary. In addition, the traffic sign system at some locations that are at risk of forming black spots, railway level crossings, and bus parking locations on national highways also need to be replaced to suit the reality.

Spring Seven