Asia Times: AIDS and the art of motorcycle survival



	February 3, 2000	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

AIDS and the art of motorcycle survival
By Tom Greenwood

HANOI - ''AIDS on the road'' was the sensationalist response of the Vietnamese press to last year's death toll statistics from the Ministry of Transport.

In fact, the number of lives lost to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in 1999 accounted for a mere fifteenth of the 6,958 people who died on Vietnam's roads.

Traffic accidents - where an average of 25 people die each day - have been recognized as the country's largest single preventable cause of death and injury. While last year saw no dramatic increase in the number of road accidents, fatalities jumped an 16 percent over 1998 and injuries more than 10 percent. ''Unfortunately, the true figures are higher than those reported and published,'' Le Ngoc Hoan, minister of transport and chairman of the National Transport Safety Committee, was quoted as saying recently. He added that, aside from the cost to human lives, hundreds of millions of dollars were lost in labor, medical care and material damage.

A sharp rise in the number of motorized vehicles, notably motorbikes, coupled with a widespread ignorance of road safety, is generally seen as responsible for exceedingly high road deaths.

The government's policy of ''doi moi'' (economic openness) has led to dramatic growth in prosperity over the last 10 years particularly for city dwellers, whose average income per capita increased 3.7 times between 1993 and 1998, according to the General Department of Statistics. Much of the nation's newly-acquired income has been spent on motorbikes, a symbol of prosperity in a country that used to rely on bicycles. Ten years ago, Chinese-made bicycles were the dominant mode of transport and the heavy, smoke-churning Russian motorbike was considered a status symbol. But this has changed. Ministry of Transport estimates last year put the total number of motorbikes at around 4 million - one for every 16 urbanites or every 50 people nationwide. According to the Transport and Public Works Service in Ho Chi Minh City, the city had a total of almost 1.5 million motor vehicles last year - a 930 percent increase since 1975.

Unfortunately, the growth in motorbikes has not coincided with an increase in road safety awareness. Traffic lights - only installed in the capital in the last couple of years - are routinely ignored and stop signs are non-existent. Cars and motorbikes veer wildly into oncoming traffic lanes to overtake.

In September last year, a Traffic Safety Month promoting road safety was credited for a slight drop in the number of accidents over the period. But road-users, many of whom were unaware of the campaign, remained largely unconvinced. ''I neither hear about nor care about the traffic safety movements that the police launch,'' remarked one middle-aged motorcyclist. ''They say they are doing something to increase traffic safety but to me everything seems unchanged - there is no difference.''

Although the cities' traffic may be characterized by mayhem and frequent mishaps, the majority of serious accidents occur on the nation's highways. Highway 1, Vietnam's main north-south artery and Highway 5 between the northern cities of Hanoi and Hai Phong, were singled out as having 50-70 percent more accidents than other roads. Recently completed repairs have given the roads smooth surfaces for the first time, allowing drivers to reach perilously high speeds. Seatbelts in cars and lorries are not yet compulsory.

The almost complete absence of motorbike helmets, particularly on city streets, inevitably contributes to the number of injuries and deaths. Almost all of the fatalities in motorbike accidents were a result of head injuries. Although the government introduced a decree requiring motorcyclists to wear helmets five years ago, it did not include punishment for those violating the ruling and was thus ignored. ''Whether or not to wear a helmet while riding a motorbike remains a controversial issue,'' Pham Cong Ha, deputy chief of the National Traffic Safety Committee, told IPS. ''Only those who have experienced accidents wear one because they know the price to pay for comfort and convenience.''

A survey carried out by the research group Taylor Nelson Sofres last year found that only 5 percent of motorbike riders owned helmets - and only half of those wore them. The biggest reason why road users eschewed the helmet was discomfort, closely followed by a fear of ''looking stupid''. Only 8 percent of respondents mentioned expense.

Lap, a 24-year-old motorbike cleaner, sums up the views of many. ''Ordinary people will never wear helmets because they find them inconvenient. I also feel that wearing a helmet will make me look ugly. If someone in the city puts on one of those robot-like things, they will be considered unfashionable,'' he said. ''People prefer risking death rather than wearing one, particularly in the summer when they would go mad from the heat.''

Hao, a motorbike-taxi rider, says it will take serious police work to enforce the habit of using helmets.''Only when the police wait at main intersections to check who wears a helmet and who doesn't, will people think of wearing one,'' he pointed out.

That does not look like it will happen in the near future.

''We're still wondering whether we should reinforce the rule and punish those who don't wear a helmet,'' pondered Hao. Meantime, he suggested, ''designers should find ways to produce a helmet which is light, small and convenient''.

The need for more urgent traffic safety measures was also expressed at a roundtable discussion titled ''Save Vietnam'' which brought Unicef, the US Embassy and government agencies together in October.

Morten Giersing, a Unicef representative at the meeting, says the epidemic of road deaths and injuries could threaten Vietnam's potential for future social and economic development: for each of the 25 people killed on the road each day in Vietnam, two were permanently disabled and 10 were temporarily disabled to the point where they could not work.

An official from the Viet Duc hospital in Hanoi who chose not to be named, told IPS that traffic accident victims place a giant burden on the health sector. ''The [Viet Duc] hospital has to spend a huge budget mostly on surgery for traffic accidents, mainly head injuries and broken legs. Surgery for victims of traffic accidents account for 90 percent of the hospital's budget for surgery,'' he said.

If the number of accidents was reduced, the money could be spent on treating other patients, particularly those who come a long way from the countryside and are forced to wait. ''People with stomach and heart disease often have a long wait . . . many do not receive treatment in time,'' the official added.

(Inter Press Service)

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