Road safety takes a back seat as Vietnam speeds ahead
HANOI - Vietnam's congested roads have become some of the deadliest in Asia, with more than 30 people a day getting killed in traffic accidents.
But as the number of motorcyclists on the nation's roads increase, authorities find they have their hands full trying to cope with the problem.
Deadly accidents increased almost fivefold in 11 years from 1990. To put Vietnam's road toll in perspective, the number of fatalities is twice as high as the average road fatalities in Japan, whose population is 30 percent larger.
Motorcyclists resist wearing helmets. They also frequently drive without a license or under the influence of alcohol. At the same time, traffic police take bribes instead of cracking down on violations.
Recently, Vietnam has started to get serious about reducing deaths on its roads.
On March 29, Miss Vietnam 2006, Mai Phuong Thuy, appeared at the World Bank's Hanoi office to launch a campaign calling on motorcyclists to wear a helmet.
Posters bearing the slogan "Let's put on a helmet--no more excuses" feature a picture of the beauty queen in a flower-patterned helmet.
Martin Rama, the World Bank's acting country director for Vietnam, said at a news conference launching the campaign, "Vietnam made a great sacrifice in the (Vietnam) War. Now, it is facing a similarly (critical) situation. People underestimate traffic accidents compared to terror attacks."
The campaign is mainly organized by the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, a nonprofit group that promotes safe driving. It is supported by the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other organizations.
The Vietnamese authorities, for their part, are taking measures to address the problem.
In April, the National Traffic Safety Committee (NTSC) imposed stricter penalties for traffic violations, and conducted a nationwide crackdown. The Hanoi city government also banned senior high school students from going to school by motorcycle.
The growing attention to traffic violations was prompted by two headline-grabbing accidents that occurred in Hanoi last December.
Early that month, Seymour Papert, 78, professor emeritus of artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), who visited Hanoi to participate in an international academic conference, was run down by a speeding motorbike as he was crossing a busy street. He suffered serious injuries.
Several days later, Nguyen Van Dao, chairman of the Council of Natural Sciences of Vietnam and one of the country's most esteemed intellectuals, was hit and killed by a speeding bike near his home. He was 69.
Local and foreign media reported the two accidents. A representative of an international organization expressed regret about the deaths at a conference of donor nations, which was being held in Vietnam at that time.
If the Vietnamese government did nothing to address the issue, it could hamper foreign investment in the country. Such a sense of crisis has spread among officials of the government.
"Foreign companies choose Vietnam for investment mainly because of its political stability, few terrorist attacks and low crime rates. But the risk of traffic accidents is so high that it could offset those advantages," said a senior official of a Japanese company.
The number of people killed in road accidents increased from 2,268 in 1990 to more than 10,000 in 2001. In 2002, Vietnam had the largest number of traffic deaths among the 10 member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Vu Khoan, then deputy prime minister, described the situation as "the largest catastrophe since the Vietnam War." He ranked the traffic issue with natural disasters and corruption as the biggest problems facing the country.
In an attempt to attract people's attention to the issue, the government conducted essay and campaign slogan contests. However, road safety has taken a back seat to economic growth, and Hanoi has relied on aid organizations to lay out the money to implement stricter traffic measures.
Motorbike accidents are the chief concern. In 2005, 85.7 percent of those who were treated at the Viet Duc Hospital in Hanoi after crashes had been involved in motorbike accidents.
The number of motorbikes stood at 6.5 million in 2000. Since then, more motorbike assembly factories have been set up in Vietnam. Besides, many low-priced motorcycles have been imported from China. As a result, the figure exceeded 10 million in 2002.
In Vietnam, there are few public transport options, so many people rely on motorbikes to get around. The number of four-wheel vehicles is still fewer than 1 million. Vietnam is the only country in ASEAN where the motorbikes account for over 90 percent of the total number of vehicles.
It is rare to see people riding motorbikes with helmets in Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City, which are both flooded with motorbikes. According to the NTSC, of the motorcyclists involved in traffic accidents, just 1.4 percent were wearing a helmet when the accidents occurred.
In 2000, the government made it mandatory for motorcyclists to wear helmets when they ride long distances on national roads. In 2003, it urged civil servants and students to wear helmets when they ride on motorcycles.
However, every time the government has discussed making helmets compulsory, people have come out strongly against the idea. As a result, the government has yet to pass rules requiring riders to wear them at all times.
Head injuries accounted for about 77 percent of traffic deaths last year. Trinh Hong Son, deputy director of Viet Duc Hospital, lamented the situation.
"Although the effects of helmets are obvious, people hate wearing them, saying, 'It is hot, inconvenient and does not look cool.' Those people think traffic accidents will never happen to them."
Vietnam is also known for the bad manners of its motorcyclists. They frequently go off road, riding along narrow sidewalks between parked motorbikes, pedestrians and food stalls.
According to a survey by the Ministry of Transport, only half of motorcyclists turn on blinkers when they make a turn. Seventy percent of those surveyed said that they do not apply the brakes when they negotiate curves.
In addition, many people ride motorcycles without a license.
Nguyen Trong Thai, deputy chief of the secretariat of the NTSC, says that the rate of unlicensed drivers is about 10 percent--a marked improvement from 50 percent several years ago. However, some aid organizations estimate that the rate is really around 20 to 30 percent.
Moreover, it is rumored that people can obtain a driver's license easily by giving money to an official of the license center. According to the popular conception, traffic police are worse than useless, spending their time hiding behind trees waiting to leap out, grab people breaking the law and extracting bribes from them.
Another serious problem is lack of infrastructure. Vietnam has neither car-only roads nor pedestrian overpasses. The authorities do not have machines to detect speeding or drunken driving. They do not own high-speed cars to chase down speeders.
The Japanese government aid organization, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which has helped with the introduction of traffic safety measures in Vietnam since 2001, started to conduct training projects for traffic police last year.
A Japanese traffic expert, Michimasa Takagi, who is serving as an instructor in the program, said: "People's awareness has not caught up with the rapid economic development or the arrival of a society in which motorbikes or cars are widely used. Vietnam needs to work on personnel training, policy-making and infrastructure development at the same time."
By Naoji Shibata - The Asahi Shimbun - June 14, 2007.
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