Resolutely handle oversized and overloaded vehicles

(Baonghean) - On the morning of July 31, Deputy Minister of Transport Le Dinh Tho, together with leaders of the General Department of Roads, Department of Road Management II, and Department of Transport, directly inspected the handling of oversized and overloaded vehicles at Weigh Station No. 15 Dien An. Right at the scene, the Deputy Minister directed the forces performing the task to do it openly, transparently, and resolutely cut off the illegally converted vehicle body.

Cut the oversized truck bed!

Despite the participation of the Deputy Minister of Transport and many leaders of the General Department of Roads, the Department of Road Management II, the Department of Transport and functional officers performing the task, not all drivers strictly followed the order to stop the vehicle. Some drivers left the cabin, closed the car door and showed an uncooperative attitude. Only when the officers of Weighing Station No. 15 mobilized a crane did these drivers return to the driver's cabin to enter the station to weigh the vehicle. During a period of more than an hour, under the direction of Deputy Minister Le Dinh Tho, the traffic inspection force and police on duty at Dien An weighing station requested 15 cars with signs of overloading to enter the weighing station.

Director of the Department of Transport Nguyen Hong Ky (right) directly measured the part of the truck bed 37C-03488 that the owner had extended and requested to remove.

Of these, 3 overloaded vehicles were discovered, one with signs of unauthorized modification of the vehicle body. The violating vehicles all had a load exceeding the permitted limit. For the vehicle with license plate 37V-3628 of Nghe An Mineral Joint Stock Company driven by Pham Ngoc Thanh, the total weight of the vehicle was 36.64 tons; the permitted weight of the vehicle was 14.97 tons; the weight of goods allowed to participate in traffic was 9.9 tons; exceeding the permitted weight of goods participating in traffic was 11.77 tons. For the truck with license plate 75C 02023, the functional force inspected and discovered that the lower layer carried bricks, the upper layer carried candy, exceeding the load by 200%; the truck with license plate 75C-02679 carried tapioca flour exceeding the load by 80%.

After inspecting the overloaded vehicles, Deputy Minister Le Dinh Tho and Director of the Department of Transport Nguyen Hong Ky inspected the truck bed of the vehicle with license plate 37C-03488 in detail. Although the forces determined that this was a Howo ("tiger" - made in China) vehicle with a bed height exceeding the regulations, to ensure accuracy, in addition to actual measurements, Deputy Minister Le Dinh Tho and Mr. Nguyen Hong Ky requested the representative of the Nghe An Motor Vehicle Registration Center to urgently transfer relevant information of the vehicle. Deputy Minister Le Dinh Tho said: "It is necessary to clearly determine the time of inspection, when to import, before or after Circular 32 (Circular No. 32/2012/TT-BGTVT dated August 9, 2014 of the Ministry of Transport regulating the size limit of cargo containers of dump trucks, trailers and semi-trailers of dump trucks, tank trucks, trailers and semi-trailers of tank trucks participating in road traffic). If imported and inspected before the Circular, it is okay, if inspected after the Circular, it must be handled. Only by doing so can we be convincing". Director of the Department of Transport Nguyen Hong Ky requested: All vehicle owners who carry out inspection have made commitments, so the inspection agency urgently transfers the inspection parameters and the vehicle owners' commitments for comparison... Through inspection, the vehicle with license plate 37C-03488 was inspected on March 11, 2014 at the Nghe An Motor Vehicle Inspection Center. At the time of registration, the truck bed was 1.50m high and had 2 compartments. Meanwhile, the actual measurement at the scene showed that the bed was 1.88m high and had 3 compartments. Thereby, it was determined that the owner of vehicle 37C-03488 had arbitrarily modified the vehicle structure to add a compartment with a height of 0.38m. Pursuant to Circular 32 and Plan 3346/KHHD-TCDBVN dated July 10, 2014 of the General Department of Roads on the Action Plan to inspect and handle acts of illegally changing the size of cargo beds for dump trucks and converting to increase the number of beds for sleeper buses, Deputy Minister Le Dinh Tho directed the forces to carry out the task of cutting off the part of the bed that the vehicle owner had arbitrarily converted against regulations. "If we are not determined to do something, people will suspect that we have a problem. We must do it transparently; what has not been done and what has been done must be clear. We must not cover up, we must do it correctly, and make public to the press what we have done..." - Deputy Minister Le Dinh Tho directed.

There will be moremany strong measures

Mobile weighing station No. 15 Dien An has been operating since April 1, 2014. According to Mr. Tran Trong Thang - Chief Inspector of the Department of Transport, by July 30, 2014, the station had inspected 2,996 cars, of which 1,113 vehicles were recorded for violations (627 vehicles were carrying 50% more than their load capacity, 101 vehicles were carrying 30-50% more than their load capacity, 43 vehicles were oversized...); and a total fine of 3.9 billion VND was imposed. In addition, from June 1 to July 1, 2014, the Department of Transport established 3 mobile inspection teams to regularly handle oversized and overloaded vehicles on the roads. A total fine of over 1 billion VND was imposed. Recently, the Department has continued to establish another working group specializing in inspecting vehicle conversion for handling and removal. However, the situation of oversized and overloaded vehicles is still "hot". Mr. Tran Trong Thang said that many difficulties are being faced by the transport sector, especially the traffic inspection force. "There is a lot of work, but the total number of staff is only 27 people. We arranged 12 people at the weighing station, 3 working groups of 9 people. The force is too thin, the equipment for the groups is lacking, besides the funding problem is also very difficult. Since carrying out the task until now, we have not been given additional funding, just the fuel cost for our brothers to travel to perform the task is millions of dong a day. Besides, not all drivers cooperate, as you saw this morning, we had to send a crane to the driver to bring the car to the weighing station. That is at Weigh Station 15, there are still measures to handle. As for the mobile groups, it is very difficult, when they are discovered to be checked, the driver abandons the car and leaves. In such cases of "dodging", we have the right to check. However, they often abandon the car so we are forced to wait, if we cannot wait, we have to move to another place, lie in ambush to check, or the only way is to remove the license plate and notify The inspection centers are where we are performing vehicle inspections...

Vehicles showing signs of overload are brought in for inspection at the weighing station.

Mr. Nguyen Xuan Cuong - Deputy Director General of Vietnam Road Administration, affirmed that in the coming time, the Ministry of Transport will implement many measures to handle the problem of oversized and overloaded vehicles. That is, working with the Ministry of Industry and Trade to limit the import of large trucks that are not suitable for Vietnam's road conditions; improving the quality of vehicle inspection to prevent vehicle owners from expanding and changing the vehicle structure; controlling the load of cargo vehicles right at the source of goods, mines, seaports and improving the efficiency of weighing stations; in the coming time, weighing stations will be connected to toll stations in the form of BOT on the main roads to thoroughly handle the problem of oversized and overloaded vehicles. Mr. Nguyen Xuan Cuong said: "With the situation that trucks are often registered with the correct size and structure, but after registration, they are illegally modified, the Ministry of Transport has established 9 working groups to check violations of trucks between 2 registration periods. The groups will withdraw registration stamps, cut off illegal extensions and impose administrative penalties on violating trucks...".

The fact that vehicle owners illegally converted vehicles as mentioned by Mr. Nguyen Xuan Cuong is very close to the actual situation in Nghe An. Especially for "tiger" vehicles, the type of vehicle often used by mineral enterprises. This type of vehicle is often converted to a height of approximately 2m, carrying dozens of tons of overloaded vehicles, and is one of the main culprits causing damage to roads. According to Mr. Hoang Phu Hien, Deputy Director of the Department of Transport, there are more than 1,000 "tiger" vehicles in the province. Mr. Hien said: "Currently, the Department has established inspection teams and sent documents to districts and cities in the province requesting supervision of businesses and vehicle owners to absolutely not arbitrarily upgrade or expand the cargo bed of tiger-like vehicles. For vehicles that have violated the law, vehicle owners and businesses must completely cut off the expansion and sign a commitment not to repeat the offense. On the night of July 30 alone, the working group of the Department of Transport caught 10 "tiger-like" vehicles carrying overloaded and oversized cargo. In addition to the request to reduce the load and impose administrative penalties, the vehicle owners were forced to cut off the expansion on the spot...".

We have informed the Director of the Department of Transport, Mr. Nguyen Hong Ky, about the information that Nghe An Newspaper reporters have captured on National Highway 7, National Highway 15, National Highway 48, National Highway 1A... At Weigh Station No. 15, Mr. Nguyen Hong Ky asked Chief Inspector Tran Trong Thang to remind the mobile inspection team to immediately monitor vehicle circulation on National Highway 48. Regarding the problems on National Highway 7, Mr. Nguyen Hong Ky said: "I will form a team to directly inspect...".

Nhat Lan - Nguyen Khoa