Starting this December, the Ha Noi Police will start sending traffic tickets home to drivers that include photographs of their traffic violations captured by the city's traffic camera system.

Police officers from the city's traffic control centre were tasked to record such photographs of traffic violations, especially at the city's busy junctions. They would later look up information on the vehicle owners in the police database.

In the event that the information on vehicle ownership cannot be retrieved or vehicle owners refuse to co-operate, the police will add their licence plates to a "blacklist", which would be sent to the city's automobile registration authority and patrol police personnel for stronger penalties, Huynh Tan Nam, captain of the police's department of traffic control said.

He noted that the new method to use photographs as evidence was aimed to help improve drivers' awareness and attitude towards traffic safety regulations. The traffic police personnel on patrol would also be able to concentrate on directing traffic instead of dealing with traffic offenders.

The city has installed nearly 400 closed circuit TV cameras to help control traffic across the city. During the first ten months of the year, police issued fines for more than 2,000 violations based on photographs taken with those cameras.

The traffic camera system has proved to be of great assistance to the police during a number of hit-and-run cases, in which they have helped the police in tracking down the vehicles and drivers.

VNS