\n<\/p>\n
Vietnam\u2019s motorbike drivers have always tended to treat red lights as suggestions, more slow down than stop. At rush hour, they\u2019ve brought the same indifference to other rules, like: Yield to pedestrians; or, stay off sidewalks; or, do not drive against the flow of traffic.<\/p>\n
Some found it charming, the ballet of many wheels dancing around pedestrians. But Vietnam\u2019s road fatality rates have long been among the highest<\/a> in Asia. And after cracking down on drunken driving, the country\u2019s leaders are now going after everything else.<\/p>\n Under a new law, traffic fines have risen tenfold, with the biggest tickets exceeding $1,500. The average citation tops a month\u2019s salary for many, and that\u2019s more than enough to change behavior. Intersections have become both calmer and more congested by an outbreak of caution. Faulty green lights have even led scared drivers to walk motorbikes across streets the police might be watching.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s safer, it\u2019s better,\u201d said Pham Van Lam, 57, as he pruned trees outside a Buddhist pagoda by a busy road on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City this week. \u201cBut it\u2019s cruel for poor people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Making Vietnam more \u201ccivilized\u201d (\u201cvan minh\u201d in Vietnamese) appears to be the goal<\/a>. It\u2019s a word the government has often deployed for public order campaigns, signaling what this lower-middle-income country often sees as its north star: the wealth and order of a Singapore, South Korea or Japan.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n All three countries prioritized road safety as they grew richer, as did China, adhering to the idea that orderly streets reflect an achievement of modernization.<\/p>\n But Vietnam has its own particular history and trajectory. Economic growth has lifted millions out of poverty without propelling them into comfort. In most cities, there are growing numbers of people, motorbikes, cars and trucks \u2014 and the Communist bureaucracy is struggling to keep up<\/a>.<\/p>\n The streets are Vietnam\u2019s coliseum. Especially in cities, they are the forum where society\u2019s biggest conflicts \u2014 between government control and personal freedom, between the elites seeking harmony and strivers seeking income \u2014 have long played out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 1989, as the state laid off more than a million people, an admission that Soviet-style central planning had not delivered economic growth, private enterprise was legalized on the streets. A small-business revolution followed, with tiny plastic chairs and sidewalk sales.<\/p>\n Home, work and road rapidly merged. Street-front living rooms became stores. Motorbikes and food carts swarmed sidewalks. Pedestrians, an afterthought, walked in traffic.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The government has at times tried to bring order to particular areas. More than a decade ago, an anthropologist at Yale saw in such efforts<\/a> \u201ca convergence between the disciplinary goals of the late socialist Vietnamese state and the interests of an emerging propertied class.\u201d<\/p>\n But like the tropical vegetation that grows wild at the cities\u2019 edges, Vietnam\u2019s irreverent urban culture has resisted being tamed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In 2007, when the government decided to force motorbike drivers to wear helmets, obedience blended with mock compliance. Some people strapped kitchen pots to their heads. Many still wear headgear shaped like a baseball cap, and not much safer than one.<\/p>\n When the police started aggressively targeting drunken driving a few years ago by sharply raising fines and confiscating vehicles, many of the violators just left their motorbikes behind<\/a> rather than paying to get them back.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Now another backlash is brewing. Millions of dollars are pouring in (Ho Chi Minh City reported that ticket revenue jumped 35 percent in the law\u2019s first two weeks). Many see the new rules, along with added cameras and a provision offering rewards for snitches, as more about institutional greed than safety.<\/p>\n \u201cThe police just want to take as much money as they can,\u201d said Dinh Ngoc Quang, a motorbike taxi driver, as he was waiting for customers at an intersection in Hanoi, Vietnam\u2019s capital. \u201cThe higher fines hit the pocket of lower-income people like me the hardest.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n As the traffic lights turned red, the rush of motorbikes and cars \u2014 usually constant \u2014 suddenly stopped.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s nice to have traffic order, but how about the life of poor people like us who need to work on the street every day?\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Some drivers have called the new law oppressive, authoritarian and exploitative. Many complain that the fines are far too high, and that their usual trips take twice as long, eating into the earnings of taxi and truck drivers, or those of anyone relying on efficient delivery. Memes about ambulances getting stuck for hours and people getting rich (or punched) for reporting red-light violators have spread on social media.<\/p>\n Caution, by all accounts, has disrupted the flow.<\/p>\n In major cities, motorbikes playing by the old rules now frequently rear-end drivers trying to be careful, stopping early, sometimes even when lights are green. Truck drivers have paused wherever they could to avoid fines for working too many hours straight. Intersections are now noticeably louder, as honking drivers squeal where traffic used to gurgle and move like a river around stones.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe\u2019re stuck everywhere, all the time,\u201d said Huynh Van Mai, a truck driver who makes regular trips between Ho Chi Minh City and the port of Vung Tau, about 60 miles away.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s stressful,\u201d he added, taking a break near a logistics hub with towers of shipping containers stacked behind him. \u201cThere are so many changes in the laws.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n And yet, as many acknowledge, there is a logic to the effort. Since stepped-up enforcement started, beer sales have fallen by 25 percent<\/a>, and drunken driving has declined across Vietnam. <\/p>\n Vietnam\u2019s national leaders \u2014 just a few months into power, with many who started their careers in state security \u2014 are eager to go further. The pursuit of safety and government surveillance seem to be aligned: In Hanoi, officials announced a plan<\/a> last week to add 40,000 cameras to the roughly 20,000 already in place across the capital.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But in such a young country, with an average age of around 32, compared to nearly 40 for the United States and China, the government seems to realize that some rebellion is inevitable.<\/p>\n When it comes to driving, preaching patience is one response. As a columnist in one newspaper recently wrote<\/a>: \u201cHours of traffic jams are like a large-scale rehearsal for society where each person must learn to adjust themselves, accept limitations and interact with others.\u201d<\/p>\n In some places, concessions to pragmatism have also been made. After 10 days of complaints, Ho Chi Minh City sent out<\/a> teams to install signals allowing motorbikes to turn right on red at 50 intersections. In Hanoi, the local authorities have also moved to adjust some traffic lights.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n A twitchy balance between chaos and order has started to emerge. Though some motorbike riders still speed against traffic, and on sidewalks, far more stop when they should alongside the country\u2019s growing ranks of cars and trucks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Sensing success, some commentators have begun to wonder what else could be changed with large fines \u2014 perhaps big tickets for littering would help reduce trash all over the country?<\/p>\n \u201cIt takes time and effort to promote a civilized style,\u201d said Nguyen Ngoc Dien, a former deputy rector at the University of Economics and Law at Vietnam National University in Ho Chi Minh City. \u201cThese new traffic regulations are part of that effort.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n