Overloaded watercraft is rampant, who handles it?

Overloaded ships have been racing for many years, but the authorities have no effective solution to prevent it.

The situation of overloaded watercraft is common, but the handling of the functional forces is not easy Heart attack with “beam train” In the early days of June 2021, at the post to regulate water traffic at Chuong Duong – Long Bien bridge cluster on the Red River, due to the start of the rainy season, the water level often changes rapidly. However, the situation of overloaded watercraft, especially sand, gravel and construction materials is very common. Many ships carry heavy loads, the hull is deeply sunken, causing water to overflow on the deck on both sides of the ship, feeling like a big wave or storm, the ship can sink at any time. “Every day there are several hundred ships carrying sand and gravel passing through here, there is no ship carrying a load. Every ship carries “beams”. Looking at the ships flooded with water on the floor made my heart flutter. Any train that goes near or recklessly passes when crossing the bridge to create a big wave, I don’t know what the consequences will be,” an employee of the regulation station said. The leader of the Water Traffic Regulatory Station at Duong Bridge said that from the beginning of the year until now, 5-6 cases of cargo ships having problems and being rescued by the rescue station at the above location are overloaded ships. “The stream over the Duong bridge flows fast and round, if the ship is weak and overloaded, the risk of accidents is very high. In the recent cases, if they were not saved in time and crashed into the bridge pier, I don’t know what the consequences would be,” said Mr. Tran Duc Hai, commander of the Duong bridge’s traffic regulation station. Mr. Tran Xuan Khoi, Director of the No. 1 Inland Waterway Management and Maintenance Joint Stock Company, also informed that most of the cases of vehicles having accidents ran aground or sunk at black spots such as Duc Bac reef, Van Lang bridge … are overloaded vehicles. Overloaded ships when traveling through complicated points and channel positions are easily passive and dangerous when avoiding each other or being pushed across by water. Through the camera, we discovered that the overloaded ship was the main “culprit” of flattening and drifting buoys in some dangerous channel locations”, Mr. Crew members of some construction material ships on the Lo River – Red River route admit that overloading is very dangerous, but for the sake of profit, they still have to take risks. “The owner of the sand mine when selling goods only measures the volume, not the size of the container, so he has to load the beams. I know it’s risky, but I have to take the risk,” said Tuan and the owner of the ship VP-xx35, saying that now every ship is overloaded, because carrying the right load, the right registration is not “racing”. with other ships. Hard to deal with Representatives of the above-mentioned waterway maintenance management units said that from the end of June to October every year, waterway traffic in the northern region is often more complicated due to entering the rainy and stormy season. Therefore, functional forces need to strengthen control and strictly handle overloaded watercraft to reduce the risk of traffic accidents and protect the lives of crew members. Mr. Khuong Kim Tao, former deputy chief of the Office of the National Traffic Safety Committee, said that overloading is also a direct cause of traffic accidents and incidents of watercraft when participating in traffic. Therefore, this situation needs to be dealt with immediately. “The regulations on the management and handling of violations of the load of watercraft are quite complete, but why is the violation of overloading still common?”, Mr. Tao questioned and said, the most inadequate today. is the handling of the unresolved authorities. Also, because it has not been implemented to force ships to unload, or to temporarily seize overloaded watercraft according to regulations, it leads to violation of the law. At this point, it is necessary to have a progressive sanction solution for violating watercraft carrying too many times, deducting fines from the account, income of enterprises and owners of violating means instead of having to “follow” the method. facilities for temporary detention,” suggested Mr. Tao. Mr. Luu Xuan Binh, former deputy head of the Office of Traffic Safety Committee in Hanoi shared, having directly surveyed the handling of water traffic violations many times, he witnessed the functional forces facing many difficulties. That is when sanctioning or suspending overloaded vehicles, it is not easy to organize unloading, while there is also no parking lot for vehicles to keep. “The control and handling of violations of overloading on waterways needs to be synchronized at all relevant stages, from the source of goods, ports, receiving terminals and means of transport. If only focusing on handling on the transportation journey will not be effective, “said Mr. Binh. According to Colonel Nguyen Vinh Giang, Head of the Department of Guidance on Traffic Control and the fight and prevention of crimes on waterways (Department of Traffic Police), it is necessary to increase the level of penalties to strictly handle violations of overloading. However, the current limitation is that the system of anchoring and keeping vehicles has been suspended from operation. “So, along with raising the level of fines, localities need to organize the anchoring and keeping areas of suspended watercraft in order to completely handle this situation,” Colonel Giang said. Increase the fine to 15 million According to a representative of the Vietnam Inland Waterway Administration, the current fine for overloaded vehicles is only 12 million VND. In the Draft Decree on handling of administrative violations in the field of waterway traffic (replacing Decree 132/2015), the highest fine level is set at 15 million VND.