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Brainstorming Session No.9
Road traffic safety in Vietnam
On 23-8-2006, Mr. Tetsuji Masujima (ALMEC), a transport expert with more than 10 years of experience in VN, was invited to present traffic safety situation Vietnam. Contents of the presentation include basic data on traffic accidents, problems and issues of traffic safety in Vietnam, government efforts and assistance of international organization to reduce traffic accidents.
Vietnam’s road safety has deteriorated over the past decade. According to the statistics from National Traffic Safety Committee (NTSC), road traffic accidents made up 97% of the total number of accident fatalities last year. Per 10,000 vehicles there was an official fatality rate of 8.3 persons or fatality rate of 1.4 per 10,000 people, making Viet Nam’s roads the one of the most dangerous in Asean countries. In 2005, the major causes of road traffic accidents are road user’s errors, unsafe vehicle conditions and roads and bridges condition and other. Road user’s errors includes in Vietnam include speeding, dangerous overtaking, drunk driving, poor road observation, misuse of lanes and pedestrian, making up 66.4% of the total number of sample accidents. Unsafe vehicle conditions, roads and bridges conditions and others made up 0.7%, 0.2 % and 28.5% of the total number of road accidents respectively.
Road traffic accidents in Vietnam has a clear pattern in all geographic regions, with the leading contribution of motorcycle (71.4% in 2001), followed by automobile (22.5% in 2001). Between the regions, urban areas like Hanoi and Hochiminh city, there are high rates of injury as well as more motorcycles involved in traffic accidents. In Hochiminh city, motor vehicle drivers caused 92.88% of total number of traffic accidents in 2001. In national highways, the percentages of traffic accidents caused by motorcycles and automobile are 57.2% and 36.6% on highway number 3; 4.1% and 95.3% on highway number 5; 52.9% and 45.6% on highway number 3 and 58.2% and 39% on highway number 18. Speeding and reckless driving are the main causes of traffic accidents on national highways.
There is a trend of decreasing the number of accidents in the past four years since 2002. According to Mr. Tetsuji Masujima, this is partly due to traffic safety enforcement, roads improvements but largely due to the change of reporting system in which only serious accidents have been recorded by policy. There is a discrepancy between traffic accident data provided by NTSC and other sources and limitations in the information collected. Reports are not always compiled for each crash, those that are completed often missing key information, and only severe cases are reported. In addition, data is collected within a short period of time after the accident and. It doesn't provide therefore, details of the longer term implications of the accident, which might be important in terms of health effects.
The ability of the goverment to analyze the real situation of traffic accidents and to develop effective road safety program is limited by the poor data on traffic accidents. Existing data are considered to be unreliable and incomplete, so that causes of traffic accidents are difficult to identify.
Recently, Vietnam has received a lot of assistances from international organizations. Worldbank has sponsored Vietnam Road Safety Project that aim to strengthen the capacity, resources, and skills of relevant agencies, including the National Traffic Safety Committee and the Ministries of Transport, Public Security, Health and Education and Training. This project focuses on supporting the development and implementation of implementation of comprehensive, integrated safety programs like black spot section improvement program and accident monitoring and evaluation program along three high-risk national road corridors: Highway 1 between Ha Noi and Vinh (281 km) and HCM City and Can Tho City (151 km), and Highway 51 between Dong Nai Province and Vung Tau (80km).
While recent JBIC financed projects focus on traffic safety improvements in the south, JICA’s sponsored projects are mostly in the North. JBIC financed project focuses on comprehensive traffic safety measures on national highway number 3,5,10 and 18. JICA’s sponsored projects includes a development survey on human resource development on traffic safety, a study on traffic accidents for model area in Hanoi, preparing and broadcasting of traffic safety TV drama and Hanoi traffic safety improvement project.
Mr. Tetsuji Masujima also suggested that it is necessary for Vietnam to develop an efficient and comprehensive traffic safety system ( as a whole) with coordination between the concerned international organizations in order to provide a safer highway system.
[by Ngo Duc Anh] |