One simple idea at a time: stay on your side in Vietnam An accident in Ho Chi Minh City on January 23, 2016. Tuoi Tre The Vietnamese government’s call to reduce traffic deaths by 2020 is an ambitious but worthy goal. Although there has been skepticism on social media – big promises have made before – it’s still a great idea. There are hundreds of tragedies a day in Vietnam: swimming deaths, tainted water, food or alcohol, you name the disaster, it’s probably happened. It’s depressing, expensive for the nation and can be changed.  So let’s do just one idea and get everyone to stay on their side of the road. In its simplest form – not staying on your own side of the road creates chaos and prevents drivers and riders from sticking to a straight line. In its deadliest form – other people pay the physical price for one selfish person’s impulse to just choose the straight line between two points. Staying on your side is vital to preventing and destroying the common notion that the biggest vehicle gets to do what it likes. Roads are not divided by social class and physics doesn’t care if you are an important person. You will die just as horribly. Eight years ago when I arrived in Hoi An and started living here, hardly anyone used a helmet. It was hard to find a shop that sold a solid, realistically protective helmet – not the eggshells that are sold on street corners nationwide. Yet that has changed, significantly. Sure we see the exceptions everyday but slowly more and more people are complying because all the others around them do.  It worked because the government and the police have hammered away at the population for a long time about helmets with large public media campaigns in Vietnamese and the promotion of safety in school by the ministry of education (yes, there really are health and safety lessons in most school curriculums).  ‘Not good enough!’ I hear you say, however it’s a global problem that is far worse in other parts of the world. Do you know that some of the highest traffic tolls occur in places like the Cook Islands, The Gaza Strip and Saudi Arabia? Strange yet true that this is so basic that many traffic law books don’t say, stay on your side of the road. Usually there’s a list of offences and their penalties. While going the wrong way up the side of a street is attempted and frequently unsuccessful in the large Vietnamese cities – it’s the most utterly amazing, dangerous, stupid and inconsiderate action I see every day here. Modern road systems are designed to keep vehicles apart – not closer together. That’s what the lines are for. In the countryside, roaring up the middle of the road because you have the largest vehicle and refusing to slow down while people unexpectedly come out from side roads create thousands of near collisions daily. Even worse, the concept that it’s safer to turn the corner on the wrong side because you will be out of the way of large vehicles also increases the chances of a minor accident. I would be willing to state that the Vietnamese government might make a big reduction in road accidents simply by hammering this one idea into the population – in as strong a way as possible.  The right to ‘push your way through’ is illegal in all countries and usually described as ‘driving in a manner dangerous to other road users’ and the penalties are harsh and strict. There are issues of harsher penalties needed and better engineering – particularly with urban traffic light timing and separating predictably large numbers of road users at particular times of the day. Increasing the number of physical barriers only avoids making people responsible for their actions. It’s clear that whatever solutions are chosen, some part of the population will not comply. Having thousands of police officers enforcing this idea only works up to a point, it’s attitudes that need to change. Its social engineering that might just get this idea work, nothing changes people’s attitudes and behavior faster than the idea something they do is ‘uncool’ or not admirable. People do things in crowds here. Perhaps it’s time to start a national campaign ‘not to be a fool’. Make people realize that they are being and will be thought of as extremely selfish for not complying with the most basic rule of the road. What do you think? Whose side are you on? STIVI COOKE Tuoitrenews