General Director of Honda Việt Nam Koji Sugita and Vice Chairman of the National Traffic Safety Committee Khuất Việt Hùng presented helmets to students at Phú Đô Primary School in Hà Nội as they launched programme to gift two million helmets to first-graders across the country in 2023-24 schoolyear. — Photo from the organiser

HÀ NỘI — As many as 2 million helmets will be presented to first graders nationwide in the 2023-24 academic year under a programme launched by the National Traffic Safety Committee, the Ministry of Education and Training, and Honda Việt Nam on Monday.

Addressing the launch at the Phú Đô Primary School in Hà Nội, General Director of Honda Việt Nam Koji Sugita said the company pledges to take every possible measure for realising Honda’s global target of no traffic deaths related to Honda motorcycles and automobiles by 2050, and the Vietnamese Government’s target of no deaths related to road accidents by 2045.

He noted wearing qualified helmets is a practical and important solution to protect motorcyclists and their families. It is crucial for helping first graders, who are in an important age group of awareness formation, adopt the habit of wearing qualified helmets on a motorcycle.

A broader target that Honda Việt Nam aims at is to promote the habit of wearing helmets among motorcyclists in the country, he went on, adding that it will continue providing traffic safety training for students and their parents and improving traffic safety awareness via public relations activities.

The programme was previously carried out nationwide by the three above-mentioned parties from 2018 to 2020. After a hiatus caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Honda Vietnam resumed this programme in Hà Nội, Cần Thơ, and HCM City in the 2022-23 academic year.

The 2 million helmets to be presented in this year’s programme will raise the total so far to nearly 8.6 million.

Khuất Việt Hùng, Vice Chairman of the National Traffic Safety Committee, said though traffic accidents in Việt Nam have decreased considerably, the numbers of related deaths and injured persons remain excessive.

National statistics reveal that about 7,000 people in the country, including 600-700 children, lose their lives to traffic accidents every year. Meanwhile, 100-150 children sustain life-long injuries due to traffic accidents annually.

The Party and State always view reducing traffic accidents and easing the pain caused by the accidents as a highly important political task, Hùng noted. He called on parents to lead good examples for their children to follow and teachers to constantly remind students to wear helmets when traveling by motorcycle or electric bike. — VNS