Police officers are mostly supportive of the idea, while others, including car drivers and authority figures, are not so impressed, urging careful study.

The novel idea was recently put forward by Brigadier Dao Thanh Hai, Deputy Director of the Hanoi municipal Department of Public Security, in a conference held last weekend announcing the transport sector’s activity plan for 2017.

Hai requested the Ministry of Public Security (MoPS) to work on the proposal to submit to the Government for consideration.

According to this proposal, car owners would be required to open a bank account and a certain amount of money is to be deposited in that account. Should violations occur, by identifying car owners via images captured by traffic cameras, fines will be automatically debited from the offenders’ accounts.

Part of the reason for this proposal is, as Hai said, the police still face a number of difficulties in handling traffic violations, especially in cases of offenders whose car ownership certificates were not registered under their names.

Those who do not have proper ownership certificates for their vehicles will be forced to do so. Thus, law-enforcement and authorities will have an easier time managing cars.