HCM CITY — HCM City’s Traffic Safety Committee and traffic police have called for making penalties for speeding more severe at a meeting held to review a two-month traffic campaign that had run until March 31.

During the campaign, held to educate the public and clamp down on speeding, officers caught 7,368 vehicles speeding, including 2,320 private cars, 1,109 trucks, 180 buses, and 49 taxis. The number was almost a fourth up from the same period in 2017.

At the meeting, held on Thursday, traffic police officials said they faced many difficulties in tackling speeding, especially due to the poor quality and obsolete speed guns.

“When drivers are stopped, they ask to see the images and speeds recorded, but due to the poor quality, [they] are not clear and it takes us a lot of time to deal with them,” an official said.

They suggested that drivers should be asked to verify the data when they come to pay the fine and not on the road.

A traffic police official from District 3 said speeding was the main reason many accidents occur in his district.

Nguyễn Văn Thương, deputy head of the Road and Railway Traffic Police Division, was quoted as saying by Tuổi Trẻ (Youth) newspaper: “In Bình Chánh District, 12 roads have been allowed to increase speed limits and it leads to serious violations.”

The Department of Transport promised to review the traffic situation and adjust speed limits.

The Traffic Safety Committee announced it would closely co-operate with relevant authorities to patrol and detect speeding and penalise drivers.

“Fines should be increased significantly for speeding violations to reduce accidents,” a representative of the committee said. — VNS