According to the Government Inspectorate, the requirement of "blood or breath alcohol testing" is removed to simplify, facilitate and reduce costs for people when issuing and renewing driver's licenses. Because from January 2021 to January 2023, more than 9.9 million driver's licenses of all types were issued. Calculating the unit price of more than 35,000 VND/test, the cost for people to have unreasonable alcohol testing during health check-ups to issue driver's licenses is about 350 billion VND.
350 billion VND just to do something that is too redundant, too unreasonable, too mechanical. People will waste both time and money on such unnecessary regulations.
People who drink and drive, with blood alcohol concentration, if detected, will be punished by traffic police according to regulations. As for those who issue or change driver's licenses, why do they have to be tested for alcohol concentration? Suppose when the health check, the driver has no alcohol concentration, but after the test, they drink alcohol, this shows that testing alcohol concentration during driver's health check is useless.
Or when going to a health facility, they do not directly drive but have someone take them, take a taxi, or grab, so what does that have to do with having a blood alcohol concentration? The law only prohibits blood alcohol concentration when driving a vehicle, other normal activities are not prohibited.
Therefore, alcohol testing at the time of health check is completely unrelated to the driver's ability to drive. Alcohol testing during driver health check is mechanical and makes things difficult for people.
Not to mention, forcing people to spend 350 billion VND on this useless work is a waste.
The Ministry of Health should take into account the opinions of experts, the Government Inspectorate and public opinion, and amend the driver's health examination form to remove the requirement for "blood or breath alcohol test", to facilitate people when taking driver's health examinations.
Regarding the "alcohol concentration" issue, just tightening the inspection and punishing people who drink and drive is enough, there is no need to add any more regulations to inconvenience the people.
