Vietnam - August 5, 2014

The Hanoi People’s Committee has asked the municipal Traffic Safety Committee to conduct a helmet inspection campaign alongside local police.

Inspectors will check trading certificates, bills and receipts belonging to helmet vendors and importers, and examine working conditions and trademark ownership at helmet manufacturing enterprises. They will also test various helmets to ensure their safety.

The Product Quality Management Department under the Ministry of Science and Technology inspected nearly 80 helmet manufacturing and trading enterprises in 12 provinces and cities in the first six months of this year. Out of more than 300 helmet samples, 46 failed to satisfy quality and trademark regulations.

The Hanoi police have confiscated more than 5,000 substandard helmets from trading enterprises so far this year.

Tran Dinh Minh, 40, a resident of Hanoi’s Hoang Mai District, was grateful for the inspections, saying that the responsibility for judging helmet quality should fall on police and market watch officials rather than individuals.

“We cannot really distinguish good helmets from fake ones. The inspections will help eliminate the fake ones from the market, so we can buy good helmets,” he said.

Source: Viet Nam News, 5 August, 2014