Road Outlaws 'Overloaded Vehicles', Daejeon City to Conduct Special Crackdown Until the End of This Month

Last year, the Daejeon City Construction Management Headquarters and related organizations conducted a joint crackdown on overloaded vehicles. Photo by Daejeon City

[Asia Economy (Daejeon) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Daejeon City will conduct a special crackdown on overloaded vehicles until the end of this month.

The city announced on the 16th that it has designated a two-week period until the 30th as the "Intensive Crackdown Period on Overloaded Vehicles" and will jointly crack down on overloaded vehicles with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Police Agency.

The crackdown targets vehicles that exceed the limits set by the Enforcement Decree of the Road Act (Article 79), including those with an axle load over 10 tons, gross weight over 40 tons, width over 2.5 meters, height over 4.0 meters, or length over 16.7 meters.

Drivers of violating vehicles will be fined up to 3 million KRW depending on the violation and the number of offenses.

In particular, drivers who violate prohibitions such as obstructing load measurement will face imprisonment of up to one year or a fine of up to 10 million KRW.

The city plans to educate large construction sites, construction equipment rental companies, and freight transport associations within the jurisdiction on the obligation to manage cargo loading in advance, while frequently changing crackdown locations by time to prevent detours around major crackdown points and axle manipulation by overloaded vehicles.

Last year, the Construction Management Headquarters of the city measured 6,882 vehicles during the crackdown, detected 156 violating vehicles, and imposed fines totaling 77.72 million KRW.

Typically, the impact of an overloaded vehicle with an axle load of 11 tons on road facilities is equivalent to that of 110,000 passenger cars passing, and an axle load of 15 tons has an impact equivalent to 390,000 passenger cars on the road.

In fact, there are more than 10,000 cases of road damage caused by overloaded vehicles every year, and the cost of maintaining and managing the damaged roads is estimated to reach 42 billion KRW annually. The passage of overloaded vehicles on roads leads to enormous social costs.

In particular, overloaded vehicles have about twice the fatality rate compared to general vehicle accidents because even minor accidents can lead to explosions or fires, according to the city.

A city official said, "While cracking down on overloaded vehicles is important, it is even more important for drivers and cargo loading managers to comply with the law themselves," and added, "We ask for the voluntary cooperation of transport-related parties regardless of the crackdown."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.