A truck is examined for its weighing capacity at a toll station on Nội Bài Lào Cai Highway. — Photo vietnamplus.vn

HÀ NỘI — The Việt Nam Expressway Service Joint Stock Company (VEC) refused to provide services to about 2,800 overloaded vehicles, mostly trucks, in the first quarter this year, a VEC report said.

The refusal came after these vehicles were confirmed to be overloaded with goods or passengers before they entered the routes under the VEC management, the report said on Tuesday.

The routes on which the VEC discovered a large number of overloaded vehicles include the highways of Nội Bài-Lào Cai and Cầu Giẽ-Ninh Bình in the North and the HCM City-Long Thành-Dầu Giây Highway in the South.
On Nội Bài-Lào Cai Highway, for example, the VEC used high-tech equipment at a weighing station to inspect nearly 245,000 vehicles, of which 2,630 were found to be overloaded.
The report said the company discovered many vehicles were overloaded by 61 to 122 per cent of their capacity.
The movement of all these vehicles on highways was immediately suspended.

On the HCM City-Long Thành-Dầu Giây Highway, VEC officials at the toll stations of Long Phước, km11+150 and Dầu Giây, km52+300, discovered about 135 vehicles to be overloaded by 93 to 149 per cent of their capacity.

The overloaded vehicles, mostly trucks, which are being blamed for damaging roads and threatening the safety of others on the roads, have been a headache for road management authorities for many years.
As authorities tightened their controls over overloaded trucks last year, the number of road accidents decreased.

The Directorate for Roads of Viet Nam (DRVN) said the number of overloaded trucks decreased by 91.5 per cent in 2015 as compared to 2014.

The traffic police dealt with more than 4,400 cases of vehicles violating the loading laws last year, collecting VNĐ390 billion (about US$17.4 million) for the Việt Nam state treasury.

The authority expected that control over truck loads would create a more competitive environment in the transportation sector and curb the frequency of transport firms paying bribes to the police to allow their overloaded trucks to travel on the roads.

Road transport currently meets 94 to 95 per cent of the nation’s total transportation demands. — VNS