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The experts had converged in the capital to discussion various solutions to the traffic problems and alarming rise in accidents. They estimated an increase in accidents between eight to 10 per cent every year.
During the meeting they estimated that with a growth rate of more than 7 per cent, the country could have 52.6 million vehicles on the roads by 2020. One suggestion to improve road safety in the country was to build the image of kind-hearted traffic policemen, said Takagi Michimasa, chief advisor of the national road traffic safety master plan's study.
This would have to be done at a mass level among ordinary people so that they are encouraged to obey road safety and traffic rules, he said. A joint study with the National Traffic Safety Committee of Vietnam (NTSC) and the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) recently found that policemen need to play their roles effectively as implementers of traffic safety rules and its management.
Bui Huynh Long, chief of the NTSC Standing Office thought that task might prove difficult as policemen had earned a bad reputation for taking bribes from traffic violators. It was largely due to this that many people ignored road safety and traffic laws.
Drunk drivers, the poor quality of road as well as low levels of awareness on traffic rules had come to typify Vietnam and resulted in the high number of traffic accidents, Long said.
Long cited the example of other countries where people preferring living away from traffic corridors, a somewhat alien concept in Viet Nam. The Government's move to pay for the clearance of obstruction in traffic corridors had had little effect.
Long said studies must find Vietnamese ways that would work with Vietnamese people because it was a unique country where applying international formulas would not work.
This article first appeared on www.vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn
July 23, 2008
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