Circular 13/2025/TT-BCA regulating the amendment of Circulars on road, railway and inland waterway traffic order and safety (Circular 13,). The Circular takes effect from March 1, 2025.
Article 10 of Circular 13 amends and supplements a number of articles of Circular No. 72/2024/TT-BCA regulating the investigation and settlement process of road traffic accidents by traffic police. Some outstanding regulations are as follows:
Road traffic accidents must be reported to the traffic police department and the police of communes, wards, towns, and police stations in districts where there is no commune-level administrative unit (hereinafter referred to as commune-level police) where the road traffic accident occurred for settlement according to their authority or to coordinate when requested and monitor, count, and summarize road traffic accidents occurring in the area.
Circular 13 also abolishes a number of following provisions:
In case the road traffic accident has complicated details; kills 3 or more people; causes prolonged traffic congestion at inter-route, inter-regional, inter-provincial levels; causes disasters or requires coordination in rescue, relief, regulation, and traffic congestion from the police of many provinces and centrally run cities, the agency or unit receiving the report of the road traffic accident shall handle it as follows:
The Traffic Police and Order Team of the district, town, city police under the province, city under the city, city under the central government (hereinafter referred to as the district-level traffic police police team).
The commanding leaders of the district-level police receive reports of road traffic accidents and handle them as follows:
If a report of a road traffic accident occurs on a route or area assigned to patrol, control, and handle violations, traffic police officers must be sent to the scene immediately to check and verify the report of a road traffic accident. If a road traffic accident occurs, the investigation, verification, and settlement tasks must be carried out according to regulations.
In case a road traffic accident occurs on a route assigned to patrol, control, and handle violations under the Traffic Police Department or the Traffic Police Department of a provincial police agency or under the territory of another district police agency, the unit assigned to patrol, control, and handle violations on the route or area where the road traffic accident occurred shall be notified to carry out the task of investigating, verifying, resolving according to its authority and coordinate in investigating, verifying, and resolving the road traffic accident according to regulations.
Road traffic accidents that occur on routes and areas patrolled, controlled, and handled by district-level police must immediately be reported to the provincial police director (through the advisory department and the provincial police traffic police department) and reported to the Ministry of Public Security (through the Traffic Police Department) for direction and resolution.
For district-level traffic police officers, report to the district-level police chief to assign the investigation police to receive the investigation and resolve the matter.
Traffic police officers under the district-level police must report to the district-level police chief to transfer the records, documents, exhibits, and means of the road traffic accident to the investigation team for synthesis to receive the investigation and settlement.
Thus, all traffic accidents must be reported to the district police before. However, since March 1, there are no more district police, people immediately notify the commune police and the provincial police traffic police department when they have an accident.
