Honda Vietnam will present nearly 2 million helmets to first graders nationwide in the 2018-2019 academic year under a programme announced on July 5. 

Honda Vietnam General Director Toshio Kuwahara said the programme was launched to deal with the fact that most of Vietnamese children don’t wear helmets when they travel on motorbikes with their parents. 

A helmet is only a tool and it is important to teach children how to use such tool, he said, pledging that Honda Vietnam will continue to work with the Vietnamese Government to ensure traffic safety. 

According to statistics, after ten years of the mandatory helmet law, more than 90 percent of adults observe the law, which has helped cut the number of traffic accident facilities to below 9,000 each year. 

However, the number of children wearing helmets remains low, which is the leading reason for the increasing rate of child injuries cased by traffic accidents. 

Transport Minister Nguyen Van The, deputy head of the National Committee on Traffic Safety, said every four minutes, a child dies due to a traffic accident across the world. 

About 2,000 Vietnamese children are killed in traffic accidents every year, mainly due to a lack of public awareness of the importance of helmets, he said, praising Honda Vietnam’s social responsibility through the programme. 

The helmets will be presented to Vietnamese children from September 5, 2018.-VNA