Viet Nam: Media and Motorcycle Helmets

In 2007, Viet Nam required all motorcyclists to wear helmets, all the time and under all conditions. This wasn’t the first time that a national requirement to wear helmets had been made in Viet Nam. The first regulation was passed in 2001. At that time, however, there was little coordinated effort to inform the public of the law, explain why helmets were needed, and enforce helmet wearing.

In 2007, the situation was different. There was a coordinated government, private and NGO sector approach, and the state-owned media was involved in all phases of the promotion and implemenation of the new law.

Peter Hill and his colleagues from the School of Population Health Institute in Australia, Viet Nam’s Health and Policy Institute, and the World Bank qualitatively examined the role of the media in reporting of the story of mandatory helmet legislation.

Reporting about the helmet legislation wasn’t the only reason that the implementation of Viet Nam’s law was successsful. Other factors – such as establishment of a National Transportation Safety Council, helmet subsidies, quality control programmes and enforcement – were also extremely important. Hill and colleagues have summarized some of these factors, presented in table below.

The print media reported on these factors – sometimes promoting government sponsored public policy, but also reporting on the public’s response to the legislation. Print media reports were also instrumental in opening public discussions on helmet quality and cost.

Editor’s comment: We’ve discussed many times in this newsletter about the need for collaboration between many sectors to promote the use of helmets. This article documents one case where this collaboration was successfully implemented. We believe that it can serve as an example for others to promote helmet use.

Hill PS, Ngo A, Khuong TA, et al. Mandatory helmet legislation and the print media in Viet Nam. Acc Anal Prev 2009;41(4):789-97.

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