Helmet Law a Qualified Success
From: Bill Hayton
Date: 2008/12/16
Does a 10% fall in road deaths count as success? I suppose it does if you're one of the 1,400 people still alive but you'd have thought that after the helmet campaign the results might have been more dramatic...
WHO: Vietnam's helmet law saves lives
HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - The World Health Organization said Monday that Vietnam's mandatory helmet law helped save more than 1,000 lives since it was introduced a year ago but that more loopholes need to be fixed. Monday marked exactly one year since the government required all motorcyclists to wear helmets.
There were 1,400 fewer road traffic fatalities and 2,200 fewer serious injuries in the year ending October 2008 compared to the same period a year previous, the WHO said, citing a report by the National Traffic Safety Committee. Nearly 13,000 road deaths were recorded last year, one of
the world's highest rates per 100,000 with the majority of accidents involving the ubiquitous motorbike, which is the country's main mode of transportation. «Thanks to the introduction of mandatory helmet laws there are more people alive today to enjoy time with their family and look forward to Tet celebrations,» Jean-Marc Olive, WHO representative in Vietnam said in a statement. Tet is the Lunar New Year festival which starts on Jan. 26. «The alternative does not bear thinking about. There is no simpler message - helmets save lives,» he said.
WHO praised the Vietnamese government for its recent decision to give the police power to fine motorcycle riders and passengers who do not correctly fasten their helmets. If a helmet is not fastened, police will consider this «non-wearing» and the rider and passenger can be fined up to 200,000 dong ($12).
WHO said it is also working with the government to develop a law that penalizes adults who allow children to ride motorcycles without proper helmet protection. Currently, children under 16 years of age, or the adults that are responsible for them, cannot be financially penalized for not wearing a helmet.
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From: harry aveling
Date: 2008/12/16
It really depends who you count as a "helmet".
Some offer more protection than others, from what I've seen.
Harry Aveling
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From: Ben Stocking
Date: 2008/12/16
considering the fact that half the helmet users don't bother to buckle them, and kids under 16 aren't using them at all, and most of the people who do use them use poorly made helmets, and the number of vehicles on the road has been rising -- 10 percent probably does count as a "qualified" success.
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From: Matt Steinglass
Date: 2008/12/17
Yeah, not many magic bullets in public health, right? – it’s this 10%, then the next 10%, then the next…
Future issues to target might include the 0% seat belt use rate, the 0% staying-in-your-traffic-lane rate, the 75% traffic light compliance rate, and maybe the large portion of the national highway that’s still a 2-lane road with no passing lane.
Matt
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From: Le Minh Giang <lg282@columbia.edu>
Date: 2008/12/17
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
It is just amazing how powerful statistics could be. I remember years ago, at the beginning of Doi Moi, Professor Mai Ky – the then Minister of Population and Family Planning – told the audience of National Assembly that if population continue to grow as it were, Vietnam would be ten times poorer than at the start of the 1980s (the proportion could slip my memory but you get the point). Then came the strict regulation on two-children per family and...
Talking about public health, there exists the concept of “confounding factor” which usually creates spurious correlation between two variable that one is investigating. What are the “confounding factors” in this case? Why are they not mentioned?
Giang
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From: Haughton, Dominique <DHAUGHTON@bentley.edu>
Date: 2008/12/17
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Greetings from Ho Chi Minh City! This actually is a very good point; a more relevant statistic might be about the proportion of motorbike accidents resulting in a fatality, and whether the helmet was a factor in avoiding the fatality. If the data point to less deaths, the question is whether there might have been less accidents, or whether accidents were less fatal. I strongly suspect the latter, but that impression may be more based on common sense than data at this point. Another interesting tidbit is that apparently it is not considered “cool” among young men in Hanoi to use mirrors on motorbikes … (?????).
Happy holidays to all, Dominique