Checking alcohol concentration in Đắk Lắk Province. VNA/VNS Photo

The Department of Medical Service Administration under the Ministry of Health is collecting feedback from experts and specialised units in setting alcohol concentration limits in driver’s blood or breath.

It will serve as a foundation under the perspective of health sector to make proposal on which level of alcohol concentration should be allowed on driving.

Nguyễn Trọng Khoa, deputy head of the department, said the health ministry is in favour of administrative fines against drivers with alcohol concentration in their blood or breath.

He said the National Traffic Safety Committee will work with the health ministry to collect statistics on the declining number of accidents since the Law on Prevention and Control of the Harmful Effects of Alcohol and Beer, particularly through Decree 100/2020/NĐ-CP took effect.

Sharing from personal perspective, he said imposing strict penalties on those with alcohol concentration exceeding the permitted level is necessary. However, Việt Nam should learn from other countries in order to make the regulations practical.

Decree 100/2019/NĐ-CP which took effect on January 1, 2020 legislated fines from VNĐ6 million to 8 million for drivers with alcohol concentration level below or equal to 50mg in 100ml of blood or 0.25mg in 1 litre of breath.

A driver with alcohol concentration level exceeding 0.4mg in 1 litre of breath or 80mg in 100 ml of blood will be given the highest fine of VNĐ40 million, compared to VNĐ18 million in the old decree.

Strict regulations on alcohol concentration have brought many positive effects in reducing traffic accidents and changed the drink driving habit.

However, current legal documents do not have regulations on natural alcohol level in the blood or breath. Seeking medical professional opinions on blood and breath alcohol concentrations is expected to help specialised agencies have more basis to determine proper alcohol concentration limits.

According to the latest statistics of the Traffic Police Department, in the first 11 months of 2023, police nationwide cracked down on nearly 700,000 cases of exceeding alcohol concentration limits, acconting for 23 per cent of total traffic violations.

Each day, more than 2,000 drink driving cases faced punishments.

The number of drink driving cases fined by the police doubled in 2023 compared to 2022, said the department.

Thanks to that effort, the number of deaths related to accidents caused by drink driving was also slashed by half. VNS