Many intersections in downtown Ho Chi Minh City have become heavily congested due to reckless red- and yellow-light behaviors exhibited by road users, resulting in more serious traffic gridlock.

These bad driving habits worsen traffic congestion at the intersections linking Tran Quoc Hoan with Phan Thuc Duyen Streets in Tan Binh District, Pham Van Dong with Phan Van Tri Streets in Binh Thanh and Go Vap Districts, and Dien Bien Phu with Nam Ky Khoi Nghia Streets in District 1.

As traffic lights transition from yellow to red, many drivers and riders attempt to cross the white stop lines, blocking the intersections and leading to the rapid spread of traffic congestion to adjacent areas.

The thoughtless red- and yellow-light behavior has sparked widespread concern among road users and sometimes results in road rage, with people calling for heavy fines against the car drivers who follow each other and speed up to make it through an intersection on a yellow light.

It could be uneasy for traffic police to book all of the yellow-light runners at the time, as on-duty officers are normally busy regulating the traffic flow to ease jams.

Some others suggested that traffic police officers should issue citations to those drivers who clog intersections once they have managed to improve the traffic flow.

However, those who receive traffic tickets may argue why officers only penalized specific violators when there are very many drivers blocking intersections, or they may claim that they were forced to congest the intersections because the cars in front of them did not move even when the traffic light was green.

Commenting on the issue, Nguyen Ngoc Truong, who works at a postal business, said that a large number of road users have gotten into bad driving habits, such as disobeying traffic light signals.

Truong recounted one of these instances in which lots of people honked their horns to get him to move over at a yellow light at the Dien Bien Phu-Nam Ky Khoi Nghia intersection in downtown Ho Chi Minh City during the evening rush hour.

By the time he surpassed a stop line and was in the middle of the crossroad, traffic was moving on the opposite side, thereby bringing everything to a grinding halt.

Truong concluded that he should correct himself after following the crowd to run the yellow light that worsened the traffic congestion, even though he had not intended to accelerate through the yellow light.

Reckless red- and yellow-light behaviors are among the major causes of traffic accidents and jams at rush hour, said a traffic police official in the southern metropolis.

Both yellow and red light runners are subject to administrative fines as per the prevailing regulations, the official added.

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