Director of the Directorate for Roads of Việt Nam Nguyễn Văn Huyện talks to Vietnam News Agency about measures to prevent overloaded trucks that have reappeared in some localities

Can you tell us briefly about the efforts to control overloaded trucks on the nation’s roads?

It can be said that overloaded trucks, particularly travelling long distance, have tended to increase. The situation of overloaded trucks and vehicles with oversized containers has been a bit more complicated. They operate publicly on national highways, particularly 1, 14, 6, 2, 3 and 5; as well as roads linking materials production units, mines or those that run from cement production companies to construction sites in some localities.

There are many reasons for this situation, including the temporary suspension of many mobile weighing stations. After the ministries of Transport and Public Security ended a joint project on inspecting, supervising and punishing overloaded vehicles or vehicles with oversized containers in last September after three years of implementation, many mobile weighing stations also stopped or operated irregularly.

Specifically, 23 of 64 scale stations nationwide stopped operations completely while the remaining could stop at any time.

However, it should be noted that after the joint project ended with the withdrawal of traffic police forces from weighing stations, some localities and agencies of the Directorate for Roads of Việt Nam have strengthened their human resources and capacity to continue operating both fixed and mobile weighing stations. They have also increased supervision at mines, ports and construction materials production units in order to check the use of overloaded trucks.

These inspections found that the number of overloaded trucks kept decreasing on roads with mobile weighing stations, so it is necessary to continue their operations nationwide.

You have directly inspected localities where the reappearance of overload trucks has been reported. What have you found?

The Directorate for Roads of Việt Nam and I myself have inspected overloaded trucks in localities considered hotpots. We found and punished many violators.

The conclusion we can draw from this trip is that although the deployment of overloaded trucks sharply decreased nationwide, they have a “hot” presence in some areas following the loosening of inspection and supervision.

While trucks travelling long distances tend to abide by the regulations, those on shorter trips, particularly those transporting construction materials at stone mines and construction sites, are still violating regulations. However, authorities in some localities have ignored or even covered up these violations.

Which measures is the Directorate planning to take in dealing with this situation?

The Directorate plans to deal firmly with the violators because the nation’s transport infrastructure can be damaged.  

So we have proposed to the National Committee for Traffic Safety that it reviews and continues implementing the joint action plan of the ministries of Transport and Public Security on inspecting, supervising and punishing overloaded vehicles or vehicles with oversized containers (called Plan 12593).

While waiting for the plan to be reactivated, the Directorate has proposed that the People’s Committees of localities ask their transport departments to strictly implement Government Decree in 2016 on management of overload vehicles.

The transport departments in all the localities need to mobilise forces and co-operate with local traffic police to resume operations of mobile scale stations.

For the long-term, we will propose that the Transport Ministry submits to the PM soon a proposal to introduce a new model of fixed scale stations. Under this, the weighing scales will be installed at toll stations and the results transmitted to the local transport department for follow up punishment.

Besides, the Directorate will continue increasing information dissemination of regulations on overloaded trucks to raise public awareness, and co-ordinate with the Việt Nam Automobile Transportation Association to hold talks with transport businesses on this issue. - VNS