VietNamNet Bridge – Nearly 64,000 substandard traffic signs need to be replaced along 17,000km of roads nation-wide, according to the Ministry of Transport's Directorate for Roads of Viet Nam.

Southern expressway is unsafe: meeting

Many traffic signs were in inconvenient places that made them hard to see or react to, while the instructions on others were not clear.

The directorate said 18,500 more traffic signs should be installed on national highways.

Meanwhile, traffic signs to regulate speed for vehicles in Ha Noi's Thang Long Boulevard were inconsistent, while overlapping traffic signs failed to show minimum and maximum speeds, a Vietnam News Agency reporter revealed.

Along National Highway 1A, traffic signs were leaning or had fallen over; and on some dangerous sections, there were no warning signs to advise drivers to drive carefully or slow down.

Some drivers complained that traffic signs were installed too close to hazardous terrain to adjust speed in time.

Deputy head of the directorate Pham Quang Vinh said it was planned to only issue licences for contractors to build transport infrastructure if they had detailed plans for the wording and location of traffic signs.

Vinh also said that under the strategy to develop the transport sector, inspecting and replacing substandard traffic signs was a key task.

It cost big money to replace and add traffic signs and required the co-operation of local authorities, he added.

Since early this year the directorate had replaced traffic signs along 195km in four stretches of National Highway 1 and Ho Chi Minh Highway to reduce traffic accidents.

The directorate had also required the Transport Engineering Construction and Quality Management Bureau to make the installation of traffic signs a priority on four lane highways with heavy traffic flows.

Source: VNS