Danish Embassy Funded Campaign Promoting Helmet Use in Vietnam

Danish embassy in Vietnam has funded the nationwide campaign promoting helmet use among motorcyclists which will be aired as television announcements on on local channels in all 64 provinces and cities next week.
Organisers said they hope the graphic displays of people dying or being injured because they weren’t wearing helmets will scare the public into action.
“Wearing helmets is extremely unpopular in Vietnam. People have a variety of bad excuses for not wearing them such as ‘It’s too hot and heavy’, ‘It makes me look stupid’ or ‘It messes up my hair’, however, the fact is that helmets save lives,” said Peter Lysholt Hansen, the Danish ambassador to Vietnam and one of the campaign’s financial supporters.
According to national statistics, 35 people, most of whom are in their teens or early 20s, die on Vietnam‘s roads everyday. Another 70 suffer serious head injuries.
In response to the number of fatalities across the country, the Government has announced legislation making it mandatory to wear helmets on all roads in cities and rural areas as of January 1, 2008.