In the first six months of this year, authorities fined 1,643 trucks 2.8 billion riel ($700,000) for overloading goods, according to a report from the Ministry of Public Works and Transport.
The report, released on July 6, showed that the 1,643 trucks were among a total of 1,831,374 that were stopped for inspection during this period. Aside from the 1,643 trucks that were fined for loading over the legal limits, 1,230,010 others were overweight within the warning-only level and 599,721 were moderately to severely overweight.
Of the 1,643 trucks fined, 220 transported loads 20 per cent over the limits and would be impounded for one year as set forth in article 60 of the road traffic law.
Transport minister Sun Chanthol renewed his calls for transportation businesses to respect the law and reduce road accidents by not overloading goods onto their vehicles because it causes damage and wears out roads quickly. Overloaded vehicles are also prone to causing road accidents.
“Overloaded transportation is a main factor in damaging roads and can cause road accidents,” he said.
He added that to prevent commercial transport drivers from overloading goods, relevant leaders and law enforcement officers had endeavoured day and night to tighten the transportation sector’s practices to bring them in line with the law and to implement mobile measures like weighing stations to carry out inspections on overweight trucks across the country.
The ministry said the relevant legal standards have long been communicated to the businesses, their owners and drivers. One industry that was frequently guilty of overloading was the sand depot owners and earth or dirt quarries.
It also noted that it had installed CCTV cameras at mobile weigh-stations and changed out officers at some weigh-stations who were not carrying out their work with a high enough degree of integrity or competence.
