The Minister of Transport has announced that 28
percent of vehicles have not passed or undertaken their most recent road safety
assessment at a vehicle inspection centre.
Speaking at the launch of a new centre in the
capital’s Kambol district on Wednesday, Minister Sun Chanthol said that
currently there are over 360,000 vehicles that have expired inspections.
He said in the first three months of this year,
the ministry collected $73,038 in fines from drivers who had expired
inspections.
Chanthol said the ministry issues SMS alerts to
vehicle owners when their vehicle needs to be inspected.
“When the owner knows their last valid
inspection has expired, they must bring their vehicle to an inspection centre,”
he said.
He said vehicle inspection is very important to
ensure road safety and to reduce traffic accidents.
Chanthol said the ministry runs a total of 15
inspection centres including the new one in Kambol district.
“The ministry is creating more centres in order
to provide services to as many people as possible,” he said.
He said the country loses roughly $350 million
per year due to traffic accidents. “Traffic accidents can cause damage to
property, hospital fees, and redundancy, so drive in accordance to the law to reduce
traffic accident,” he said.
The ministry said there has been 640,183 newly
registered vehicles so far this year, consisting of 15,956 heavy vehicles,
92,958 cars and 531,269 motorbikes.
According to the ministry, since 1990 there
have been more five million vehicles registered in the Kingdom.
Chan Rong, a car owner, said that his car has
been inspected and is valid for two years. Every two years he brings his car
for inspection and if not he is fined $0.12 per day.
According to a National Police report, so far
this year the traffic accident rate in Cambodia has decreased by about 23
percent compared to the same period last year.
It said that in the first nine months of this
year, 2,430 traffic accidents were recorded, compared to 3,159 cases in the
same period last year.
The report also noted that the nationwide road
fatality rate had decreased by 264, or around 17 percent, compared to the first
nine months of last year, when 1,521 deaths were recorded on the roads.