Mr. Nguyen Van Minh (reader's name has been changed) saw a traffic light "suddenly turning red from green" while driving, which could cause traffic participants to be unfairly fined.
"If people drive through a road where the traffic light suddenly turns red, will they be fined? Also, if people do not obey traffic lights to give way to priority vehicles or ambulances, will they be fined?" - Mr. Minh wondered.
Regarding the above content, the Ministry of Public Security has responded on the Electronic Information Portal.
The Ministry of Public Security said the cause of the above situation is due to some old generation traffic lights, which must be controlled manually, so there is a delay when adjusting the light cycle during the day.
Accordingly, a traffic light will change its cycle from peak to off-peak hours or vice versa.
To overcome this situation, the Traffic Police Department - Ministry of Public Security - has issued a document directing local police to coordinate with relevant agencies to review and repair traffic lights, and recommend that traffic light operators and managers promptly upgrade old lights.
Traffic police will not penalize intersections with "jumping lights." In addition, the phenomenon of lights with that delay is not common.
"People can rest assured that they will not be wrongly fined by traffic police in these cases. When making a record of the fine, the force in charge of traffic lights will coordinate with traffic police at the checkpoint, extract camera footage, images of the driver's violation, and show live the progress of the violation and the traffic light signal at that time" - the Ministry of Public Security emphasized.
For late fines, traffic police will let violators review the clip of the entire red light violation before writing up a ticket, ensuring that people are "convinced" and avoiding wrongful convictions.
In cases where drivers do not obey traffic lights to give way to priority vehicles, ambulances, etc., they will not be punished because the Law on Handling Administrative Violations stipulates that administrative violations will not be punished in cases where administrative violations are committed in urgent situations.
