Recently, Hanoi has increased penalties for traffic safety violations through the extraction of dash cams. A series of drivers were fined for violations such as: Not wearing seat belts while driving; using phones while driving; exceeding the driving time of transport business drivers...
Sharing about this issue, Mr. Ho Ngoc Lam - currently a bus driver on route 61 under Bao Yen Group Joint Stock Company (Bao Yen Group) - said that applying penalties to cases of not tying up a seat belt or using a phone while driving a vehicle is necessary.
"Each individual driving a vehicle must put their own responsibility first to ensure the safety of all passengers on the vehicle. Truck and passenger car drivers must take even more responsibility for "holding the lives of many people in hand".
Therefore, strictly punishing drivers for unsafe behavior when driving is extremely necessary. This not only creates deterrence but also brings safety and peace of mind to passengers..." - Mr. Lam emphasized.
Although agreeing with the policy of increasing fines through dash cams, Mr. Nguyen Duy Long - a bus driver on the Hanoi - Nghe An route - said that in particular, for cases of violations of driving time, it is necessary to reconsider.
Explaining this point of view, Mr. Long said: "According to current regulations, drivers of transport business cars are not allowed to drive vehicles continuously for more than 4 hours, no more than 10 hours/day and no more than 48 hours/week. However, this regulation still has many shortcomings based on actual factors.
In many cases, I was traveling on the expressway without a rest stop, but the end of my driving time continuously caused me to fall into a situation where I could not go or stay.
Although the time has been adjusted appropriately, due to heavy traffic conditions, traffic jams cause vehicles to move slowly and cannot stop at the right planned location. However, the difficulty is that this period is still counted as consecutive driving time, so if a penalty is applied, it will cause many disadvantages for drivers".
In response to this problem, sharing with Lao Dong, Mr. Nguyen Van Quyen - Chairman of the Vietnam Automobile Transport Association - recommended that the authorities should only punish violations of exceeding the driving time of business car drivers in transportation by more than 10% of the time prescribed in Article 64 of the Law on Road Traffic Safety and Order.
To solve the problems of frequent long-term traffic jams in urban areas and on the Vietnamese road system, it is advisable to only calculate the time for drivers to accumulate once, per day and per week at a minimum speed of 15km/hour. These are considered force majeure situations and can be exempted from responsibility.
Regarding the issue of drivers who have expired driving time while traveling on the expressway, a representative of the Vietnam Automobile Transport Association also recommended temporarily not applying the regulation on driving time for drivers of commercial automobiles when traveling on expressways without rest stops.
The Chairman of the Vietnam Automobile Transport Association also said that the penalty for driving overtime should be based on many factors, instead of focusing only on data in the journey monitoring device.
"Currently, many devices recording violations have not been periodically inspected according to the provisions of the law on measuring devices. Therefore, if only the data recorded from the journey monitoring device and the camera attached to the vehicle is used to punish cases of driving beyond the driving time, it is not enough basis.
Instead, the authorities need to study and integrate additional positioning and measuring devices, measuring distance and speed on each vehicle to combine handling of violations. When there is enough basis, the punishment will become more effective and fair..." - Mr. Quyen shared.
