VietNamNet Bridge – HCMC authorities plan to install electronic induction scales in addition to using mobile scales to cope with the current deterioration of local bridges and roads caused by overloaded trucks.

A truck is stopped to have its load weighed.

Bui Xuan Cuong, deputy director of the city’s Department of Transport, said his agency’s inspectors had been using mobile scales but they are still unable to stop overloaded trucks. The department will opt for electronic induction scales around local ports in the near future.

Using electronic induction scales will help inspect more vehicles as the equipment is installed on the road, Cuong said.

Controlling overloaded vehicles is hard at present. According to Le Hong Viet, deputy chief inspector of the transport department, inspections now are not effective. For instance, he said, law enforcement officers are forced to stop vehicles and use mobile scales to check their weight.

However, stopping vehicles is only done on a number of roads with light traffic. On roads with heavy traffic like Hanoi Highway, doing such a thing is impossible.

One more difficulty is that as for container trucks carrying sealed cargo, officers cannot take off excessive cargo but to fine and let them go given the lack of handling equipment and storage places.

At a meeting on traffic safety in HCMC on Tuesday, the city’s vice chairman Nguyen Huu Tin said it is better to weigh trucks at the ports instead of checking their weight on the road as this will lead to traffic snarl.

“Using electronic induction scales is a good solution. If local authorities fail to handle overloaded trucks strictly, roads and bridges in the city will weaken as a result,” Tin said.

At the end of last month, inspectors of the transport department and road-railway traffic police officers when checking trucks on some routes like Dong Van Cong and Nguyen Thi Dinh detected several overloaded trucks which were transporting up to 35 tons compared to the allowable level of 11 tons only.

Multiple roads which lead to Cat Lai Port such as Mai Chi Tho, Dong Van Cong and Nguyen Thi Dinh are sinking severely due partly to the overwhelming presence of overloaded trucks.

Source: SGT