Effective measures needed to ensure traffic safety

While presiding over a teleconference in Hanoi on June 28 held by the National Committee for Traffic Safety to review traffic safety and order in the first half of this year and roll out tasks for the remaining months of this year, the official called for greater efforts to ease traffic jams and prevent serious traffic accidents. 

The Deputy PM stressed that ensuring traffic safety and order requires the involvement of the entire political system. 

To meet the target, localities nationwide were asked to closely monitor the operation of transport companies specialising in road and internal waterways, especially passenger services. 

Deputy PM Binh also called for closer coordination between agencies and localities in applying information and technologies in the work, and drawing up projects on road traffic safety for 2016-2020. 

The committee reported that from December 16, 2015 to June 15, 2016, 10,227 traffic accidents occurred nationwide, leaving 8,939 people injured and 4,362 dead, a drop of only 2.59% in the number of deaths. 

May and June have recorded numbers of deaths caused by traffic accidents at higher levels than for the same periods last year, with the most fatal being a case in the central province of Binh Thuan and another in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong, which together killed 20 people and injured tens of others. 

Internal waterways also witnessed a number of serious accidents, causing great human and property losses with the latest incident being a boat capsized on the Han river in the central city of Da Nang on the night of June 4, which left three dead.