Listen to the people, fix things.

(Baonghean) - According to plans, on July 15th, traffic police will be allowed to fine road users for wearing substandard helmets.

Thus, once again, the story of the helmet is being hotly debated in public opinion. The question is: should penalties be imposed, and is it reasonable, fair, and legal to fine those wearing substandard helmets? Who is responsible for the widespread sale of counterfeit helmets on the market? Does that responsibility lie with the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Market Management Department, or the Traffic Police and the Ministry of Public Security? If penalties are necessary for substandard helmets, should they be imposed on the wearer or on the manufacturer and distributor? Many questions require careful consideration before any answers can be given.

First and foremost, we need to affirm that the policy requiring motorcyclists to wear high-quality, properly fitted helmets is a correct policy aimed at protecting the lives and health of road users and is entirely for their own benefit. Therefore, road users need to have a proper understanding of this to voluntarily comply with the regulations.

However, all regulations and policies must be reasonable, fair, and in accordance with the law in order to function smoothly in real life.

The regulation imposing penalties on traffic participants for wearing substandard helmets is being hotly debated by the public and is raising many unanswered questions.

In a market economy, regardless of its specific characteristics, a helmet is just another product like any other for consumers! There is no reason, no law, to penalize consumers for buying counterfeit goods. For example, should consumers be penalized for buying counterfeit clothes, shoes, watches, computers, phones, candy, or even medicine that could be fatal? In theory, penalizing consumers for buying counterfeit goods is inadequate, unfair, and unreasonable!

So, if penalizing road users for wearing substandard helmets is unreasonable, then is it reasonable to penalize the manufacturers and distributors of fake helmets? Not necessarily! Manufacturers and distributors argue that they produce baseball caps or fashion hats for pedestrians, cyclists, or for whatever purpose the consumer chooses to use them; they are not at fault, so it's difficult to penalize them!

On July 1st, Colonel Dao Vinh Thang, Head of the Traffic Police Department (PC67 - Hanoi City Police), stated that applying regulations to fine traffic participants for wearing substandard helmets would be difficult for the traffic police because they lack the equipment and tools to distinguish between standard and substandard helmets. They would only rely on guidelines from the Ministry of Science and Technology. This means that the traffic police would only be able to assess helmet quality through visual inspection and subjective intuition, making accuracy difficult. Consequently, it's highly likely that traffic police might fine one person while letting another off the hook.

For the same reasons, speaking on this issue at the government press conference on July 1st, Minister Nguyen Van Nen definitively concluded: "Helmet use is not the fault of the wearer." This also means that penalizing those who wear substandard helmets is unreasonable!

Minister Nguyen Van Nen also conveyed a message from Minister Dinh La Thang to the media, stating: "The Minister of Transport is deeply troubled by the misunderstanding regarding the information about penalties for helmet use, after people asked the Minister how they could distinguish between fake and real helmets? And if so, why should they be penalized?"

The results of numerous debates and opinions on this issue ultimately agree on one point: penalizing motorcyclists for wearing substandard helmets is neither fair nor reasonable, and requires further research and discussion.

Through the story about the helmet, we commend the truly open-minded spirit of the ministers; they sincerely and genuinely listened to the opinions of the people in order to promptly take appropriate and reasonable measures to address this issue.

On July 1, 2014, the National Traffic Safety Committee announced to the traffic police that they would only fine motorcyclists and scooter riders who did not wear helmets or who wore helmets but fastened the chin strap incorrectly. At the same time, authorities continued to educate and remind motorcyclists and scooter riders who wore non-safety helmets.

Imposing penalties on motorcyclists and scooter riders for wearing substandard helmets is necessary but should not be implemented at this time. If penalties are to be imposed, they must be addressed at the source, meaning strict management from helmet production to consumption is essential.

Thach Quy