LookAtVietnam – Roughly 100,000 trailer truck drivers nationwide have asked for a one-year extension on the new law that requires them to get higher-level driver’s licences, since few training centres can grant certificates to these drivers.
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The new road law, which will go into effect in early July, states that people who drive heavy trailers and have a Group C driver’s licence must take an extra course to get a Group FC licence for truck tractors and semi-trailers.
Previously, those who had a Group C licence – the licence for a truck weighing 3,500kg or more- were allowed to drive these vehicles. The new law was approved last November to try and reduce the number of accidents caused by trailer trucks.
However, many trailer truck drivers are having a hard time accessing new licences as few vocational centres have skilled teachers and practice grounds to organise courses.
“There’s nowhere in Hai Phong or HCM City training and granting licences for trailer drivers,” says Hai Phong City’s Automobile Transport Association vice chairman Pham Trong Thinh.
According to Thinh, more than 10,000 heavy trailers are operating in maritime ports nationwide: 7,000 in HCM City, 3,000 in Hai Phong and about 1,000 in Da Nang ports.
Chairman of the Da Nang Goods Transport Association Tran Viet Hoe says that there are no vocational centres currently training students to drive heavy trailers in central provinces.
“I don’t think that teachers can drive better than my truckers despite the fact most of the workers only have a Group C licence,” says Song Toan Transport Company director Nguyen Huu Thuy who owns 50 heavy truck trailers in Da Nang City.
Certificates for sale
In spite of the shortage of training centres, ready-made certificates are available at different prices, according to transport enterprises.
Thuy says that some training centres offered his drivers a short course and provided them with a licence immediately.
Representatives of automobile associations in three cities plan to ask for an extension to head off major problems.
If all the drivers rush to complete the course in the next six months, billions of dong will be lost as goods accumulate in ports with no one to transport them.
“It takes at least three months for a beginner to finish the course and more time to be granted a licence,” says chairman of the Viet Nam Automobile Transportation Nguyen Manh Hung.
Nguyen Van Quyen, the Ministry of Transport’s deputy head of the Roads Department, says that the department has asked the Government to postpone the law until next August.
Municipal and provincial transport departments have been asked to prepare necessary facilities to open driver training courses and assure that there’s at least one training centre in each locality.
“Those who have a Group C licence can register for the course and access the new licence in the centre they studied at before. It takes only one month to transfer from C to FC,” says vice head of the department Nguyen Van Quyen.
VietNamNet/Viet Nam News
