HCM City: more students wear helmets, but few helmets meet standards

• Nearly 2 million helmets to be presented to first graders in Vietnam
• Hanoi students presented with 10,000 qualified helmets

Schools in Ho Chi Minh City recorded higher rates of student wearing helmets on the road in the 2019 – 2020 period, however, the number of standard helmets remained low, a survey said.

At an event reviewing the city’s helmet-wearing promotion project for 2019 – 2020 held on December 29, a representative of the Asia Injury Prevention (AIP) Foundation said participating schools saw the rate of students using the safety gear increased from 23 to 78 percent in the period.

But the rate of standard helmets used was extremely low, with a large number of helmets beyond their expiry dates, according to a survey by the AIP.

The project, co-organised by the municipal traffic safety committee, and Department of Education and Training, and the AIP, granted nearly 11,500 helmets to students at project beneficiary schools and conducted communications campaigns and training sessions at these schools to guide parents and students on the correct use of helmets.

Speaking at the event, Nguyen Ngoc Tuong, deputy head of the municipal traffic safety committee, said children are the most vulnerable group in transport.

As a result of the local authorities’ effort, the rate of children aged between 6 and 15 years old wearing helmets on the road rose from 40 percent in 2017 to 70 percent in 2019, he noted, adding that the rate is expected to surpass 80 percent this year.