The Ministry of Transport has developed a project to increase the safety of national transport till 2010. The project will create a strategic programme to mobilize forces from all relevant agencies and social organisations to address this issue.

According to Minister of Transport Ho Nghia Dung, in recent years, the traffic accident situation has been rather complicated. The number of traffic accidents began reducing from 2002 to 2005 and increased again in 2006 and 2007. Especially, compared to the same period last year, the mortality rate caused by traffic accidents increased by 10.6 percent.

The scale and strategic status of the project

Compared to previous programmes, the project contains many initiatives. Under the project, priority is given to applying new and modern technology in building construction works to ensure traffic safety on national highway routes. It is necessary to discover and punish violations on the roads, limit individual vehicles, especially motorbikes in big cities through technical and administrative measures. The project introduces regulations on the use of some vehicles, particularly motorbikes and development of infrastructure, facilities, forms of transport and training activities for vehicle users.

Besides, the project also mapped out some measures to upgrade transport systems, roads, railways, sea and air routes.

In the coming time, tough measures will be intensified to minimize shortcomings in traffic infrastructure and increase management to ensure traffic safety at all levels.

Aiming to reduce 5-7 percent of death toll in traffic accidents annually

Other issues, such as training courses for vehicle drivers, traffic network, traffic law implementation, information dissemination on traffic safety, public awareness of traffic safety, rescue work for traffic accidents and State management of traffic order, will also be addressed and resolved in the project. Accordingly, public awareness of traffic law will be increased. The management of work on the quality of vehicles as well as the capacity of law enforcement agencies will also be raised in order to ensure traffic safety.

Based on reasons for traffic accidents and measures to address the issue, agencies involved in Vietnam’s traffic safety have set a target to reduce the death toll caused by traffic accidents annually by 5-7 percent and the death ratio based on 10,000 by 4.5 percent until 2010. The National Traffic Safety Committee has devised measures to increase scientific research in the field of traffic safety and improve road users’ behaviours.