Should motorcycles be banned in Vietnam or not?

Vietnam is a country like no other its unique sites, traditional food and its people make Vietnam the amazing country it is. Even the means of transportation in Vietnam is known across the world. Motorcycles have also become a part of Vietnamese culture and their way of life. Motorcycles are everywhere in Vietnam and used for a variety of reasons.

The first ever bike in Vietnam was a Honda Cub and has become one the most used bikes by students, with Honda taking the lead and entering the market other brands soon followed and now Vietnam is flooded with bikes, They can be seen speeding through alleyways, stuck on a busy street or used to transport different products even large things such as fridges.

The reason the government sees this as a matter of great issue is because the number of bikes being registered each year keeps increasing. Motorcycle sales in Vietnam increased by 9.5% in 2016 if this trend continues as it is the number of motorcycles in Vietnam will keep increasing steadily making it more difficult to find solutions to the problem.

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Two legend Honda Cub :))

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The government’s law and solutions:

The pollution to the air caused by motorcycles is the number one concern. According to *** there are 45 million registered motorcycles in Vietnam, this is almost half of the population of the country already. The amount of motorcycles in Vietnam are extremely high and is many issues such as over crowded streets, traffic congestion and pollution of the environment. The Vietnamese government has put out a plan that they will begin to enforce in 2030 which will ban all motorcycles. This ban is mainly focused in Hanoi at this point in time where there are about 2,500 motorcycles every kilometer. The government also wants to increase the percentage of public transport users from 12% to 50% during this time as well. The government have also promised 18 new bridges and eight rally way lines in the next 14 years (Leung, 2017).

The government have also split this plan into three phrases, the first phrase is the reviewing stage where all personal vehicles will be put under a coordinated management. The second stage is set in the time frame of 2017- 2020 this stage is focused on developing and improving in public transportation to be able to effectively carter to 50% of Hanoi population. The third and final stage of this plane is to slowly limit motorcycles with Hanoi and then gradually get rid of them by 2030 (Staff, 2017).

Another reason why this ban on motorcycles has gained momentum is because of the motorcycle related deaths in Vietnam. This is one of the leading causes of death in Vietnam, the number of deaths in Vietnam that are motorcycle related is 15,000 in 2010 which is increasingly high. The government also put some effort into making sure that riders were safe by passing the helmet law in 2008 although this did not fix the issue at hand due to the fact that most of the helmets that are sold in Vietnam did not met the standard and quality they are met to (Tuoi Tre News, 2017). This low level of care when it comes to safety is one of the biggest issues that Vietnamese people do not take seriously when they get on the road and ride their motorcycle. The majority of people in Vietnam that wear helmets when they drive only do so because they fear that they will be fined by the police so they will not care about the type of helmet it is and how good the quality of the helmet actually is they only buy it if it’s cheap. With this type of thinking and the amount of bikes on the road the estimated average of traffic accidents in Vietnam that result in death are approximately 14,000 every this average was done by the world health organization, it also stats that the ages that tend to most likely be in these accidents are those people within the ages 15 to 29 years old showing that age might have an effect on these statistics (Zoha Qamar, 2017).

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This law does not seem like it will benefit the Vietnamese people at all. Although the government has good intentions to decrease pollution, focusing on the main type of transportation that majority of the Vietnamese people use on a daily basis is not a good way to go to solve pollution issues. The government should focus solving some of the issues above before they can implement their plan. Also find jobs for those who will be unemployed is another importation issue (Luke Hunt, 2017). Although the government plans on banning all motorcycles the amount of busses and other means of transport needed to be able to transport people might be a worse option then bikes because the amount of buses that is need to transport everyone in Hanoi for example would be over than a hundred. The pollution cause by buses could be even more damaging then actually bikes.

The government should also look at other causes of pollution in Vietnam such as factories because they cause a lot of pollution as well and if the Vietnamese government do not strictly enforce the laws on these factories they could cause massive amount of damages one prime example is fahasa which polluted the sea and killed all the fish. That is where the focus should be on if the government is serious on improving the environment but as for at the ban goes Motorcycle is one of the things that make Vietnamese culture the way it is, it is an important part of life and the history of Vietnam trying to get rid of a part of that history seems to be impossible.

Feel free to share your idea,
By: @nguyentrung