HÀ NỘI — There are huge crowds at all traffic police stations in Hà Nội that accept registrations for the transfer of bike ownership, as the December 31 deadline draws to a close.

Many traffic police stations have extended working hours but are struggling to complete registrations by Saturday.

From January 1, under Article 30 of Government Decree No 46, issued in August, an individual or organisation will have to pay a fine of VNĐ100,000 to VNĐ400,000 (US$4-16) if caught driving a second-hand bike or electric scooter whose ownership papers have not been transferred to their name. The deadline has been set by the Ministry of Public Security.

Hundreds of people queued up at traffic stations in Ba Đình, Hai Bà Trưng, Cầu Giấy, Thanh Xuân and Hà Đông districts to register for motor ownership transfer, according to a survey done by Tiền Phong (Vanguard) newspaper on Thursday.

Hoàng Anh, 34, from Hai Bà Trưng District’s Minh Khai Ward said he queued up for a long time but did not manage to complete all the procedures for the transfer as there was a huge crowd at Hai Bà Trưng Traffic Police Station.

Despite their best efforts, the five staffers at the station could not handle all the registrations.

Thanh Hằng, a resident of Hai Bà Trưng District’s Nguyễn Du Ward, said she had stood in queue for two days to get the ownership of her daughter’s electric scooter transferred. She was worried that she might not be able to complete the registration before the deadline.

A representative of the district’s Traffic Police Station said it had dealt with more than 14,000 registrations for motor ownership transfer so far this year.

The number of registrations had rocketed in the past week, with the police station receiving around 130 registrations a day, which was five times higher than usual, he said.

The station had extended its working hours by two to three hours a day to cope with the workload and even stayed open last weekend, he added.

A lot of people had still not completed their registrations, he said, adding that the station would accept registrations till December 31 and then asked the Hà Nội administration for direction.

In Ba Đình District, the traffic police have handled around 8,000 transfer registrations so far. The district’s station extended its work hours to 8pm to deal with around 200 registrations a day, but failed to finish all registrations because there was too much to do.

In a meeting held late November, Nguyễn Đức Chung, chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, said the Hà Nội police would be given smart devices from January 1 to check whether bikers had their vehicle ownership transferred to their names. — VNS