Michelle Yeoh in Vietnam urges helmet safety for children

Movie star and Make Roads Safe ambassador Michelle Yeoh called for urgent action today to get children wearing helmets on motorcycles in Vietnam.

Michelle Yeoh signs crash helmets at Hanoi school

Michelle Yeoh interviewed after Hanoi press conference

Speaking at a packed press conference in Hanoi, organised by the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation (AIPF), the Vietnam Helmet Wearing Coalition and the Make Roads Safe campaign, Michelle Yeoh urged the government, parents and schools to ensure that children wear crash helmets when riding as passengers on motorcycles. Motorcycles are now the main form of transport in Vietnam, and it is not unusual for a whole family to travel on one bike.

Recent legislation has seen adult helmet wearing rates nearing 100% in cities. But after a promising start, when the law was introduced last December, child wearing rates have fallen back to an estimated 5%. The reason is a perceived loophole in the law, requiring children under 14 to bear the cost of traffic fines if unhelmeted, which made enforcement of child helmet wearing almost impossible for the police.

Michelle Yeoh said: “It is very troubling to see so many children in Hanoi riding on motorcycles without helmets. Twelve children are dying unnecessarily every week because they are not wearing a helmet. Where is the logic in requiring adults to wear crash helmets for their own safety but not the children? Adults must protect their children the way they protect themselves. Parents must act right now to put Government certified helmets on their children.”

AIPF President Greig Craft described how parents throughout the country were losing children because of a lack of helmets. “Every week, we hear how children without helmets are dying in traffic accidents while their parents, who do wear helmets, survive. This is a horrifying, unacceptable reality. It must be changed.”

FIA Foundation Deputy Director Saul Billingsley told the press conference; “Vietnam has achieved a breakthrough by getting nearly all adult motorcyclists wearing helmets. Many countries can learn from the experience of Vietnam – good and bad – and once the child helmet problem is fixed this will be a real road safety success story. But action is urgently needed now to get helmets on children.”

Michelle Yeoh was joined at the press conference by representatives of WHO, the Asian Development Bank, Michelin and AusAID, all supporters of the helmet coalition, and the FIA Foundation. The event marked the end of a fact finding trip for Michelle Yeoh, who recently became a Global Ambassador for the Make Roads Safe campaign and the FIA Foundation. During her visit to Hanoi, filming a road safety documentary, Ms.Yeoh visited schools, hospital wards and emergency rooms, and met the head of Vietnam’s National Traffic Safety Committee, Bui Huynh Long, and the mother of an eight year old child who recently died while travelling on a motorcycle without a helmet.

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