Leaders at all levels and civil servants should not interfere in handling traffic violations.

Speaking at the National Assembly on November 23, Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang proposed that in the near future, fines for traffic violations should be abolished at the treasury and replaced with fines through accounts.

Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang.

Synchronize multiple solutions

Speaking at the question-and-answer session this morning, after Minister of Transport Dinh La Thang took the floor, Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang said that the solutions proposed by Minister Dinh La Thang to reduce traffic accidents and traffic congestion were quite comprehensive. Minister Tran Dai Quang added a number of specific issues related to reducing traffic accidents and traffic congestion.

According to Minister Quang, traffic accidents depend on many factors, including: Issues related to traffic rules (traffic laws and traffic law enforcement); Deterioration of traffic infrastructure in many places; Rapid increase in means of transport, while many vehicles that do not meet quality standards are still participating in traffic.

Along with that is the issue of traffic organization and awareness of traffic participants (this is a very important factor, directly related to traffic accidents. Through analysis of traffic accidents, it shows that 80% of traffic accidents are caused by vehicle drivers).

According to Minister Tran Dai Quang, it is necessary to strengthen propaganda, dissemination and education of the law, making people aware of their responsibilities when participating in traffic. Building a traffic culture lifestyle, voluntarily complying with traffic laws and behaving in a civilized manner when participating in traffic...

Regarding the issue of legal corridor, Minister Tran Dai Quang proposed to continue to build, amend and supplement legal documents to ensure that they are close to reality and that the law is strictly enforced. Penalties must be raised to be sufficiently deterrent. Additional penalties must be applied, for example, for racing and weaving, the vehicle must be confiscated.

“I agree with Minister Dinh La Thang’s opinion that vehicle owners must open an account or pay a certain amount of money to enforce their responsibility when participating in traffic. In reality, there are many cases where when a vehicle is confiscated for a violation, the driver abandons the vehicle. We propose to shorten the procedures for handling administrative violations of traffic order,” said Minister Quang.

According to Mr. Quang, up to now, we have regulated that violators must go to the treasury to pay money, then come back to resolve it, which is very troublesome. Mr. Quang proposed that in the near future, the form of fines for administrative violations of traffic order and safety at the treasury be abolished, and replaced by the form of fines through accounts or direct fines with traffic order and safety violation stamps.

Minister Quang also suggested increasing the authority to impose fines on traffic police officers. Fines should be made by taking pictures of traffic violations. The current fine of 250,000-500,000 VND is still low.

The final solution that has been and is being implemented, according to Mr. Quang, is the work of patrolling, controlling and handling traffic violations, which is to build an increasingly clean and strong traffic police force, along with praising good people and good deeds, and resolutely handling violations and negative cases. There are even cases of military rank being revoked and prosecuted before the law. These are solutions to help reduce traffic accidents.

Land fund for urban transport is too low

Regarding traffic congestion, according to Minister Quang, there are many causes leading to this situation. One of the important causes of traffic congestion in large cities today originates from traffic accidents. Statistics in some cities show that 44% are caused by traffic accidents, leading to traffic congestion.

In addition, other causes such as heavy traffic volume, accounting for 23%, and broken vehicles accounting for 19%. Currently, the urban traffic structure still has many shortcomings. Traffic intersections are mainly at the same intersection, very few are at different intersections. For example, in Hanoi, out of 1,134 intersections, there are only 14 at different intersections.

Many national highways do not have branch roads, so when traffic accidents or incidents occur on the road, there are no rescue vehicles, leading to traffic jams.

Traffic participants' awareness is also one of the causes of more serious traffic jams.

The fundamental and long-term solution to overcome traffic congestion is to improve traffic infrastructure to limit level crossings.

Sharing this view, Minister of Construction Trinh Dinh Dung said that the first and core reason for traffic congestion is that land for traffic in large cities, especially Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, is very low (only about 8% while the land requirement for traffic must be from 24-26%, according to the law it is 16-26%). Parking area is only less than 1% (Hanoi is 0.3%, Ho Chi Minh City is 0.8%), while the requirement is to reach from 3-5% of the total urban land area.

The second reason is the lack of control over the mechanical population growth in central urban areas, especially the trend of urban concentration taking place in two large cities, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

Hanoi's inner city has a population density of 25,000-36,000 people/km2, while Ho Chi Minh City has a population density of 26,500 people/km2. Meanwhile, large cities in Singapore and Hong Kong have only about 6,500 people/km2. According to the 1998 government-approved 108-year plan, the four inner city districts of Hanoi must maintain a population of 800,000, but now there are 1.2 million people.

Minister of Construction Trinh Dinh Dung.

The transportation network is still very inadequate, such as: lack of belt routes; radial roads; slow investment in major transportation; lack of spatial traffic organization (underground traffic, elevated traffic and ground traffic), and lack of connection between traffic of high-rise buildings (currently, high-rise buildings must go down to the ground to go).

The development of high-rise buildings in the inner city, public works such as schools, hospitals, shopping centers, etc. has not been strictly controlled.

New urban areas lack technical infrastructure, social infrastructure and synchronous services. For example, a completed urban area lacks schools, hospitals, shopping malls, etc., leading to a situation where people from one urban area have to go to another urban area to buy goods, leading to traffic congestion.

(According to Tien Phong)