School children presented with free helmets at the launch ceremony (Photo: atgt.vn).

The move is part of a programme which was jointly launched by the Vietnam National Traffic Safety Committee (VNTSC), the Ministry of Education and Training, and Honda Vietnam in Hanoi on July 5, with the aim of increasing the number of children wearing helmets.

Addressing the event, Minister of Transport and VNTSC Vice Chairman, Nguyen Van The, quoted the fact that every four minutes a child is prematurely lost on the roads of this world. In Vietnam, traffic accidents cause around 2,000 deaths among children every year, triple the number of other countries in the region.

He stressed that, over recent years, the entire Vietnamese political system has been involved in reducing the number of traffic deaths.

However, he acknowledged that the rate of children wearing helmets remains low, at around 35%-40%, thus he called on more drastic participation from the agencies concerned in improving the situation.

Source: NDO