VietNamNet Bridge – A two-month crackdown on speeding coaches has been launched nation-wide in an attempt to prevent deadly traffic accidents.

Vehicles on the Hang Xanh intersection flyover, which was built to reduce traffic jams in HCM City. A crackdown on speeding coaches has been launched to reduce traffic accidents across the country.

Drastic new measures have been imposed by a Prime Ministerial directive following a recent spate of traumatic road accidents that have been widely reported in the national media.

Transport Deputy Minister Nguyen Hong Truong addressed an online meeting on the Government Portal on Tuesday, July 2, stating that although the total number of accidents and victims was in decline, public concern was particularly high at the moment.

He blamed the majority of accidents on the carelessness of drivers and people travelling at dangerous speeds, adding that a lack of inspections and lax management of licensing procedures had also played their part.

Deputy Chairman of the National Committee for Traffic Safety Nguyen Hoang Hiep said that under the two-month campaign to control drivers' speed, especially for coaches and trucks, a range of measures would be implemented.

He said the solutions included removing accident black spots, putting more speed warnings on roads and installing black boxes in all motorised vehicles, allowing their operation to be monitored.

He stated that calculations show that when speed rises 5 per cent, the likelihood of traffic accidents rises 10 per cent and the possibility of fatality rises 20 per cent.

Speed was believed to be the leading cause of traffic accidents according to global research, he said, adding that "in the first six months of this year, we believe that speed was the biggest killer on Vietnamese roads."

In addition, to ensure traffic safety, health requirements for drivers of coaches and buses will soon be tightened following amendments to 2009's Government Decree 91.

According to Hiep, the PM's new directive would also order on-duty traffic police to seriously obey their tasks in minimising tragic traffic accidents.

As planned, the Ministry of Transport and the National Committee for Traffic Safety will co-operate to launch the directive this Saturday, he said.

Specific missions will be assigned to every locality nation-wide, he confirmed.

Truong said that the ministry had recently focused on better managing passenger transport, and revealed that a massive inspection of black boxes was conducted from Monday, checking that all large vehicles had installed the compulsory device.

According to Hiep, only 20,000 out of nearly 49,000 vehicles contained working black boxes by July 1.

In Ha Noi alone, during the first day of inspection, traffic inspectors discovered that 12 randomly selected coaches out of 17 at local bus stations contained substandard black boxes, he said.

Hiep stated that the enterprises owning these coaches deserved to lose their licences to transport passengers.

The ministry's chief inspector Nguyen Van Huyen said that transport enterprises wanted to cut down the expenses paid for installing black boxes, therefore, they bought basic and substandard ones.

"Transport enterprises should realise why black boxes are important and start installing them seriously," he said.

Speaking at the meeting, Tran Son Ha, Deputy Head of the Road and Railway Police Department said that teaching traffic safety education to students was imperative.

Students will receive training about keeping safe on the country's roads from 2014, an initiative which is hoped will create a "new" generation of road users who will obey traffic rules and make concessions to each other to avoid traffic jams and accidents in the next 5-10 years, Ha said.

More than 4,900 people died on the roads in the first six months of this year and about 15,500 traffic accidents in total were reported.

The country has 37 million motorbikes and two million cars in use.

Source: VNS