The Hanoi Transport Association has put forth a request urging the municipal government to drop the current rule that requires taxi drivers to take a 15-minute break after every four hours of continuous driving.
According to the regulation, which was introduced in July, drivers must take a mandatory break or risk having their license revoked for a month. Since then, 500 taxi drivers have had their driving permits confiscated.
Nguyen Hong Minh, a taxi company executive, told VnExpress: “Most taxi drivers in Hanoi are migrant workers…Without a driving permit for a month, the driver is technically out of job and as a business we suffer a huge loss.”
Minh added that because trips are typically short and include five-minute breaks in between rides, taxi drivers can work for eight hours straight. Thus, in total, a taxi driver has several hours of breaks every day.
The official arued that given the lack of parking lots in Hanoi, taxi drivers have to keep driving around until a parking space becomes available, making it difficult to take breaks. Currently there are only 40 taxi parking lots, all of which have a three-minute limit.
The Hanoi Transport Association has proposed that the Ministry of Transport drop the current time limit and revise the regulation.
“We’d like to propose a regulation under which taxi drivers can drive for hours continuously as long as they can squeeze in several short breaks of between 3 and 5 minutes long instead of a 15-minute break every four hours,” the chairman of the association, Bui Danh Lien, told VnExpress.
Nguyen Xuan Thuy, a senior official at the Transport Ministry, told the news source that transport authorities are reviewing the regulation, but the ministry will continue to enforce the current limit.
[Photo via Flickr user Gavin White]
