To simplify the procedures if paying fines for traffic accidents and to curb corruption, the Vietnam Auto Transportation Association has proposed relevant agencies to issue a special kind of stamp.

Thanks to using stamps, traffic rule violators will not have to go to the state treasury to pay fines. They can pay the fine by buying stamps with face values equivalent to the fine.

The association chair Nguyen Manh Hung explained that at present, drivers who break traffic rules have their vehicle documents and driving licences seized by traffic police officers. To get back the papers and licences, they have to go to the state treasure branches in the locations where they violated the rules to pay fines and then go to police stations to take back their documents. The procedure takes a long time and is especially costly for drivers who violate the traffic rules far from their home.

According to Hung, using this special kind of stamps is the solution to all of the above matters.

Tran Son Ha, Vice Chief of the Ministry of Public Security’s Land and Railway Traffic Police Department, also says that the current formalities are very cumbersome, being both time-consuming and  costly for violators.

The Vietnam Auto Transportation Association suggested to issue fine stamps with face values of VND50,000, VND100,000, VND500,000 etc, which are equivalent to fixed traffic fines.

The stamps will be sold at post offices or other places. Drivers can stock some stamps in their wallets. When they are fined, they can pay fine immediately by sticking the stamps onto police’s minutes and go. Traffic police officers, therefore, can’t keep their documents and drivers don’t have to go to state treasury branches to pay fine and return to see traffic police to show the fine receipt and take back their documents. Only in serious cases, police officers will hold drivers’ documents for investigation.

This way, corruption will be controlled while unnecessary costs for paying fines will be restricted, the Hung says. He says that as paying fine is a long and costly procedures, drivers often want to bribe traffic police officers to get back their documents immediately and go because sometimes to the travel cost only to pay the fine is much higher than the fine itself.

At present, traffic fines are collected by local governments. Hung suggested that the state will issue the stamps and then distribute the earnings to provinces and cities. “I’ve heard that in some places traffic police are assigned to collect certain amounts of traffic fines. This may urge them to try to impose fines on drivers to fulfill their assignments,” Hung said.

Tran Son Ha suggested that car drivers must have banking accounts with at least VND10 million ($500) in the account so they can pay fine immediately whenever they break the traffic rules.

Ha said that a circular issued in 2008 allows collecting traffic fines directly in private accounts but the connection between traffic police, state treasure branches and banks is not set up. Moreover, most drivers don’t have banking accounts.

PV