Hanoi - A new law which took effect Saturday mandating that motorbike riders wear helmets appeared to be a huge success, as almost all drivers and passengers in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City abruptly switched from going bareheaded to wearing helmets. Motorbikes are the most common form of transportation in Vietnam, carrying some 65 pre cent of passengers in urban areas. But riders have long insisted on going bareheaded, and as of Friday, only a small minority of drivers and passengers on the streets of Hanoi were wearing helmets.
That appeared to have changed Saturday morning.
"I have seen a few people today go by bareheaded, and I saw the police catch three or four and fine them," said motorbike taxi driver Dang Van Binh, 52. "But very few people are going bareheaded."
Violators can be fined 150,000 Vietnamese dong, or about nine dollars, which is greater than the cost of the cheaper motorbike helmets.
"According to Decree Number 32 of the government, from December 15, 2007, anyone riding a motorbike must wear a helmet on all roads, including people sitting on the rear seat and children," said Traffic Police officer Nguyen Ngoc Hieu, whose station at the entrance to Hanoi's Long Bien Bridge is among the busiest intersections in Hanoi.
Hieu said authorities had doubled the number of traffic police officers on the streets this morning, but that still left just over 1,000 for all of Hanoi.
"Actually, our force is still very thin," Hieu said. "But we will resolutely enforce the law."
Vietnam's government has been struggling to cope with a high rate of traffic fatalities. Some 12,000 Vietnamese died in traffic accidents in the first 11 months of this year, with motorbikes causing 75 per cent of the accidents, according to Transportation Ministry statistics.
On Friday, the streets of Hanoi were crowded with vendors selling cheap motorbike helmets, some for as little as 5 dollars. The Vietnamese press reported earlier this week that safety authorities had found up to 70 per cent of the helmets tested failed to meet safety standards.
The more reputable helmet shops were also doing a brisk business. Shop owner Nguyen Nga Thao said she was selling some 2,000 helmets a day, ten times as much as usual, and she said the new law had changed her business in other ways.
"Helmets these days are light and pretty, with nice colours and patterns," Thao said. Her shop was piled high with helmets bearing pink and red stripes and hibiscus-flower patterns, as well as one designed to look like a panda's face, with large, googly eyes.
Thao said the market had become more fashion-oriented as women began buying helmets when the new law was announced in September.
Previously, many women had resisted wearing helmets, considering them unattractive. Many Vietnamese referred disparagingly to helmets as "rice cookers".
Café owner Nguyen Thi Bao said she had bought her first helmet, a green one to match her expensive green motorbike, strictly to comply with the law.
"In fact, I'm reluctant to wear one," Bao said. "But the state makes it compulsory, so we have to wear it."
By Saturday morning, helmets had gone from a dowdy, stigmatizing precaution to an universal necessity.
Le Huong, 25, and her friend Nguyen Thi Thu Hong, 27, were still not enthusiastic about the change. The two, sharing a motorbike, were buying flowers from a streetside vendor Saturday morning.
Huong said it was the first time she had gone out wearing a helmet. "We still thing they are ugly. Nothing has changed," she said. "We just have to wear them because of the law."
"But the government has approved them, and we are Vietnamese, so we follow," added Hong. "We are Vietnamese, and we love our country, so we follow."
