Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has asked ministries, agencies and localities to enhance management and restoration of road and railway ‘shoulders’, or land along both sides of the road or railway for safety, to help reduce traffic accidents. — VNA/VNS Photo Văn Tý

HÀ NỘI — Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has asked ministries, agencies and localities to enhance management and restoration of road and railway ‘shoulders’, or land along both sides of the road or railway for safety, to help reduce traffic accidents.

Under a recently-issued directive, PM Phúc requested ministries, branches and localities preliminarily review the implementation of a plan to restore road and railway shoulder safety for 2014-2020.

The Ministry of Transport has been asked to direct agencies and units to strengthen the implementation of regulations and co-ordination with localities and prevent violations of space in land areas reserved for roads or railways.

The Ministry of Public Security was requested to direct police agencies and localities to intensify the patrol, control, detection and prevention of violations of management of traffic infrastructure and strictly handle those causing public disorder or fighting those on duty along road shoulders and sidewalks.

The Ministry of Information and Communications was told to direct press agencies to step up the dissemination of laws on road and railway traffic infrastructure and condemn illegal use of pavements, roads, destructing of traffic works and illegal use of road and railway shoulders.

The PM also asked the People’s Committees of provinces and centrally-run cities to issue plans in 2017 and direct departments and branches to hold an action month on laws and violations of road shoulders.

The country recorded more than 4,100 deaths on the roads in the first half of this year, according to the National Committee for Traffic Safety. The fatalities came from more than 9,500 traffic accidents nationwide, with 7,900 people injured.

There were 151 train accidents during the period, killing 70 people.

According to the Directorate for Roads of Việt Nam, common violations of road and railway shoulders include illegal constructions and illegal crossings.

Currently, there are 1,498 legal crossings and 4,305 illegal crossing on rail routes nationwide, according to figures from the Việt Nam Railway Corporation.

Deputy Minister of Transport Nguyễn Ngọc Đông, speaking at a meeting held earlier this year said that apart from increasing guards at rail crossings, the rail sector should also install convex mirrors and use brighter signals at locomotives and crossings to make them more noticeable.

In the long term, measures should be taken to eliminate illegal crossings, automatic barriers should be added to prevent accidents and more content on railway traffic in car driving manuals and testing programmes should be added, he said.

Director General of the Việt Nam Railway Corporation (VRC) Vũ Tá Tùng, speaking at a different meeting held last month in Hà Nội, said the VRC would increase inspections to deal with violations, improve hot spots of traffic accidents and use more signal boards to warn people.

During the action month held by the VRC between May and June to tackle violations of railway safety regulations, it cleared 373 of more than 11,800 points of railway shoulder violation spots.  

Việt Nam aims to cut the number of traffic accidents and deaths by 5-10 per cent every year and lower the number of severe crashes related to coaches and motorbikes between 2016 and 2020. — VNS