HÀ NỘI – In 2017, some 22 people died and 46 were injured each day due to traffic accidents nationwide.

The figures were announced at a meeting held yesterday in Hà Nội to review the country’s traffic safety over the past year.

A report from the National Committee for Traffic Safety said that in 2017 more than 20,000 accidents happened across the country, killing 8,729 people and injuring 17,040.

Khuất Việt Hùng, vice head of the committee, said traffic accidents had decreased in terms of the number of cases, fatalities and injured victims compared to 2016.

“Progress has been made in traffic order and safety over the last year. The traffic situation in major urban areas and on national highways has remained stable,” he said.

Đặng Xuân Phong, chairman of the People’s Committee of Lào Cai Province, said the province had been aggressive in implementing measures to ensure traffic safety, including supervision at traffic hotspots and establishing teams to catch drunk drivers.

“We often run campaigns to ensure traffic safety because we found that every time such a campaign was organised, the number of traffic accident dropped,” Phong said.

Meanwhile, People’s Committee Chairman Lữ Văn Hùng of Hậu Giang Province – the locality where the number of deaths and injuries caused by traffic accidents increased – said people’s lack of awareness on traffic safety should be attributed to the province’s increase in deaths and injuries.

Trần Sơn Hà, head of the Traffic Police Department under the Ministry of Public Security, said state management in this matter should be assigned clearly to each locality or unit in order for the traffic safety task to be effective.

Nguyễn Văn Sơn, deputy minister of the public security ministry, said traffic accidents were still a problem for society.

“Each family, and society as a whole, is concerned about the risk of traffic accidents and the consequences they may face,” Sơn said.

He added that the ministry called for stricter driving training and stricter procedures for the issuance of driving licenses.

“Also, traffic accidents caused by drunk driving are still a problem. I think only when Việt Nam is no longer an attractive market for alcohol, will traffic accidents reduce,” he said.

Traffic congestion, however, worsened, especially in Hà Nội and HCM City.

Some 87 serious cases of traffic congestion occurred nationwide in 2017. The main causes for the situation were traffic accidents, large volumes of transport vehicles, heavy rains and landslides.

Tasks for the new year

On the same day, Deputy Prime Minister Trương Hoà Bình launched the Year of Traffic Safety 2018, with the theme “Traffic safety for our children”.
Speaking at the event, Bình asked the National Traffic Safety Committee, ministries, agencies, mass organisations and authorities of centrally-run cities and provinces to abide by the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Việt Nam Central Committee’s Decree on strengthening Party leadership on ensuring safety and order of road, railway and inland waterway traffic, the Government’s resolution on adopting key measures to ensure traffic safety and order and instructions from Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc. 
The Deputy PM requested that key tasks are fulfilled this year, including refining mechanisms on traffic safety, modernising equipment for traffic police and inspectors, restructuring and improving public transport services and using modern technology in transport management, among others. 
Concluding the event was a parade by transport public security forces. 

A similar event took place in HCM City on the same day.--VNS