Nguyen Van Thach, the newly-appointed head of the Ministry of Transport's Traffic Safety Department, said he would focus on policies that reduce road accidents.

Nguyen Van Thach (middle), newly-appointed head of Traffic Safety Department

During the lead up to his appointment, Thach said that the seven candidates for the position were required to prepare plans for what they would do with a view towards 2030. The most serious traffic problem in Vietnam is road accidents. About 96% of traffic death belong to road sector so his solutions for Vietnam's traffic problem mostly focus on road safety.

Thach further explained that he would give priority to low-budget tasks such as road safety audits. "The experience of the US shows that, if 300 sections are audited, the number of traffic accident can be reduced by 30-40% and the expenses would only be 0.35-0.5% that of the cost of new construction," he said.

The issue was recently brought to attention by an incident in which a bus driver caused multiple accidents and then tested positive to drug use. Thach has vowed to deal with these problems as well, saying, "In the decree on business-related road transport, we proposed several adjustments to better manage drivers, such as health checks and issuing new classes licenses for drivers of passenger vehicles."

He said that Vietnam could learn from from the experiences of other countries. For example, in some places private companies operate traffic cameras, which can save valuable revenues for the government, according to him. His other suggestion is to install a comprehensive traffic awareness campaign.

Nguyen Van Thach has a masters degree in traffic safety from the University of Sydney and 10 years of experience as the deputy head of Department of International Cooperation under the Ministry of Transport.