The Ministry of Transport's inspection and guidance team discovered illegal overloading and license plate obstruction by "hundred-ton king" vehicles during an unannounced visit in Fujian.

Recently, the inspection and guidance team of the Ministry of Transport (hereinafter referred to as the inspection and guidance team) visited six cities in Fujian Province, including Fuzhou, Xiamen, Zhangzhou, Quanzhou, Putian, and Longyan, to carry out guidance work on identifying and rectifying major risks and hidden dangers in transportation safety during the flood and summer seasons. A total of 45 locations were inspected, uncovering 88 issues and hidden dangers, including one major hidden danger.

On June 15, the inspection and guidance team retrieved data from Fujian Province's Overload Control Information Management (Smart Law Enforcement) Platform and discovered that at around 1 a.m. that day, the overload monitoring station on the Haixiang Avenue Canal Bridge in Xiamen, heading towards Quanzhou, detected a six-axle truck with a total vehicle and cargo weight of 129.14 tons, exceeding the 49-ton limit. According to Article 5, Item 2 of the "Standards for Determining Major Accident Hazards in Road Transport Enterprises and Urban Passenger Transport Enterprises (Trial)," which states that "the total weight of the vehicle and cargo exceeds 100 tons due to illegal loading during transportation," the inspection and guidance team determined this to be a major accident hazard.

Upon investigation, the vehicle involved (a heavy-duty semi-trailer tractor with license plate Min AS7819) belonged to Fuzhou Yaoxing Transportation Co., Ltd. On the day of the incident, it was transporting construction machinery cranes from a construction site in Gulei Town, Zhangpu County, Zhangzhou City, to a subway construction site in Changle District, Fuzhou City. The vehicle has since been intercepted by the Quanzhou Expressway Administrative Law Enforcement Brigade and is under investigation and processing according to the law.

"This incident highlights the lax management of cargo loading inspection processes by the relevant enterprises and the failure to implement the primary responsibility for safety production," said an expert from the inspection and guidance team. The expert noted that some drivers from the involved enterprise used methods such as strong light at night to obscure license plates and evade supervision, exposing deeper issues such as superficial safety education and training, as well as weak safety management awareness within the enterprise.

The inspection and guidance team experts suggested that local industry management departments should strengthen the analysis and application of overload monitoring data and further enforce the primary responsibility of freight source enterprises. They also recommended improving the construction of cross-regional and cross-departmental overload control information-sharing platforms to break down data barriers between transportation, public security, and other departments, thereby promoting a closed-loop management system of "automatic push of illegal clues—joint control—collaborative handling." Additionally, they emphasized the importance of using cases of overloading and over-limit accidents, such as "Hundred-Ton King" criminal cases, as warnings to enhance the risk prevention awareness and hazard identification capabilities of practitioners.

In the fields of highway operations and waterway transportation safety, the inspection and guidance team also found defects in certain safety protection facilities and equipment, as well as blind spots in hazard identification by some grassroots management departments. For example, the "Huiyu" ferry operated by Quanzhou Huiyu Island Tourism Development Co., Ltd. in Quangang District did not equip foam fire extinguishers as required. Additionally, the Meilixi Small Bridge in Xinluo District, Longyan City, had penetrating cracks but was not included in management or inspected.

The inspection and guidance team experts suggested improving the evaluation and guarantee system for hazard identification and rectification, objectively assessing the difficulties and actual effectiveness of the rectification process, and further promoting the effective transmission of safety production responsibility pressures. They emphasized the need to strengthen the regulatory responsibilities of management departments and the primary responsibilities of enterprises. On one hand, resources for flood season inspections should be increased to enhance support and guarantees. On the other hand, new technologies and equipment such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and drones should be actively promoted and applied. By leveraging technological means to assess the operational status of facilities and equipment, a three-dimensional inspection system combining "artificial intelligence inspection + routine inspection + special inspection" can be gradually established to address the contradictions of tight personnel, insufficient capabilities, low efficiency of manual inspections, and the high frequency and workload requirements of flood season inspections.