Most drinkers drive home under the influence in Vietnam: study

By Mai Trang October 7, 2019 | 05:38 am PT

Men drink beer at a restaurant in Hanoi. Photo by Reuters.

As many as 68 percent of people who drink in Vietnam drive home by themselves and display unsafe traffic behavior in doing so.

Most of these drivers violate traffic laws, with 36 percent not switching on turn signals, 26 percent going in the wrong direction, and 17 percent not turning on their lights, according to data presented at a recent conference on the consequences of alcohol abuse on motorbike and car control.

Drunk driving has caused 70-80 percent of the accidents on the road this year, the conference heard.

Many drivers surveyed also admitted that drinking alcohol is more likely to cause traffic accidents.

According to the statistics from traffic police nationwide, the percentage of alcohol-related traffic accidents was 4 percent, while the rate was 5 percent and 12 percent in HCMC and southern Binh Duong Province respectively.

Vietnamese men also consume the most alcohol in the world, drinking over five standard drinks a day, meaning 50 grams of alcohol, on average, according to the 2016 Global Burden of Disease Study.

40 percent of traffic accidents in Vietnam are linked to excessive drinking, according to the WHO, which also said was an alarming rate for a country where road crashes kill a person every hour, on average.