In the 4th draft of the Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety, which is being consulted, the Ministry of Public Security proposed: Drivers of vehicles participating in traffic must have health appropriate to each type of vehicle they are allowed to drive.
The Minister of Health shall prescribe health standards and periodic health examinations for drivers and establish a database on health examinations for drivers.
This means that if the draft law is passed, not only drivers of commercial transport vehicles must undergo periodic health check-ups (which have already been done), but also drivers of motorbikes, scooters, and private cars.
With the draft regulation on this content, many opinions are concerned about the feasibility and increased social costs if the regulation on periodic health check-ups is applied to motorbike drivers.
According to statistics, there are currently about 45.5 million motorbikes in circulation nationwide. If each motorbike is driven by one driver, the cost of health check-ups for all these subjects could be at least 9.1 trillion VND.
Speaking with VietNamNet reporters, the leader of the Legal Department (Ministry of Health) said that the current regulations on health examinations for drivers and some professions are clearly stated in Joint Circular 24/2015/TTLT-BYT-BGTVT.
In particular, the circular has stipulated health standards for drivers of classes A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, B2, C, D, E, FB2, FC, FD, FE including regulations on mental, neurological, eye, ear, nose, throat, cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, drug use, alcohol and psychotropic substances. According to this leader, there are currently no regulations on periodic examinations for motorbikes.
Discussing the feasibility of periodic health check-ups for motorbikes, sharing with VietNamNet reporter, Associate Professor, Dr. Pham Viet Cuong, University of Public Health said that the regulation on periodic health check-ups currently only applies to drivers of cars operating in the transportation business.
For motorcyclists, a health certificate is a requirement when taking the driving test. This regulation also applies to people taking the driving test for a car license. When a car license expires and people want to change it, they must include a health certificate in their application.
Although it is necessary to require periodic health check-ups for all drivers to ensure that drivers are healthy and contribute to ensuring traffic safety, Mr. Cuong acknowledged that it would be difficult to implement in practice.
Because, like other countries in the world, currently, in Vietnam there is no regulation on how long it takes to re-examine health. Therefore, if there is a regulation on periodic health check-ups for motorbike drivers, it will create a gap between the regulations.
"In case it is mandatory, it is necessary to calculate how to implement it, how often to have a check-up, where to send the results after the check-up, and what purpose the results will be used for. Although a health check-up is normal, but a periodic health check-up for the purpose of driving a motorbike, I think the meaning is not wrong, but the ability to implement it will be very difficult.
For drivers of transport businesses and trucks, passenger cars, periodic health check-ups are necessary, because their health is related to many lives and properties of others.
As for normal drivers, or those who use vehicles, if this regulation is applied, how can we monitor them? The ability to control several million car drivers is already great, now if each motorbike has one driver, the whole country has tens of millions of motorbike drivers, it will be very difficult. Therefore, I think the enforcement is not high", Mr. Cuong expressed.
According to experts, this proposal to periodically check the health of motorbike and scooter drivers should only be recommended instead of being made mandatory by law.
Agreeing with this view, traffic expert Nguyen Xuan Thuy said that this regulation, if it exists, will be difficult to implement. With the large number of motorbikes today, how will it be implemented, 3 months, 6 months or a year and which agency or unit will implement and supervise?
Mr. Thuy is concerned that the situation of buying and selling health certificates may recur if the draft is passed. This leads to inaccurate collection of health data of drivers, causing additional costs for people and society.
From there, Mr. Thuy said that we should only keep the current regulations and add a requirement that motorbike drivers must ensure their health according to the requirements of the health sector. In case of an accident, if it is due to poor health, that person must be held responsible.
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