Who will be punished when a learner driver is found to be violating alcohol concentration?
According to Lawyer Dang Thanh Tri (Dang Thanh Law Firm LLC - Bar Association of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province), based on the provisions of the law, if a driving test finds a learner driving a car with an alcohol concentration, the person who will be punished is the driving instructor.
In recent days, the content "Will a learner driver who is found to have a blood alcohol concentration be punished or not" posted on social networks has created many debates with opposing opinions.
Among them, there are opinions that the learner driver will be punished because of his own violations, but there are also opinions that mention punishing the driving instructor because this person is responsible before the law during the driving practice period.
According to Lawyer Dang Thanh Tri (Dang Thanh Law Firm LLC - Bar Association of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province), when a student practices driving with alcohol concentration, it means that he has violated the provisions of Article 5, Decree 100/2019/ND-CP.
However, Clause 8, Article 37 of Decree 100/2019 also stipulates that "A driving instructor who lets a student practice driving and commit one of the violations specified in Article 5 of this Decree shall be subject to penalties as prescribed for that violation".
According to lawyer Tri's analysis, the practical instructor is the person who directly hands over the vehicle to the student to drive, must be present in the vehicle to control and drive according to the registered route; check the student before handing over the vehicle and take full responsibility for what happens during the driving practice.
"Therefore, based on the above regulations, the person who is punished when the authorities discover that a learner driver is driving a vehicle with an alcohol concentration violation is the driving practice instructor," said lawyer Tri.
As for the student who violates the driving rules, he/she will be responsible to the training facility for the violation, depending on the agreement in the training contract signed between the parties. Most of these training contracts have provisions related to the student's responsibility for violations of the law, or causing incidents during the driving practice.
Regarding the above content, a leader of the Traffic Police - Public Order Team of Vung Tau City Police also said that in the past, the locality has not discovered any such situation, but the issue of punishment has been stipulated by law.
If a learner driver is found to have violated the alcohol concentration, the driving instructor will be primarily responsible for imposing the penalty. In some cases, or depending on the severity of the behavior, the learner driver may still be prosecuted if he or she is involved in other incidents according to regulations.
