Worsening fine dust in Hanoi requires immediate vehicle ban

This perspective is supported by a series of comments from concerned readers.

Reader Hello emphasized the necessity of immediate action: "We should gradually ban motorbikes and limit gasoline cars moving in the inner city as soon as possible. Along with that, we can adopt other measures to prevent dust caused by construction and burning. There must be many solutions and strong handling of violations, otherwise fine dust pollution will become more and more serious and sicken a lot of people."

Mr. Hung highlighted the problem of imported vehicles not meeting emission standards: "When there is no means to replace motorbikes yet, the authorities should at least ban any vehicles that do not meet emissions standards, big cars, small cars, whatever. In Vietnam, I see that people are importing a lot of vehicles discarded overseas (from tractors, dump trucks, to motor vehicles). If there are no measures to control the amount of these old vehicles, the emission situation will get worse."

Drawing from international examples, reader Jimmynguyentritin pointed to China's efforts: "China once faced the same air pollution problem as Vietnam. After that, the government issued a series of strict policies such as: banning motorbikes, increasing taxes on gasoline cars, giving incentives for electric vehicles, relocating factories away from the city... As a result, the air quality in cities in China has significantly improved. More than 80% of vehicles in this country are electric vehicles, and public transportation is also powered by electricity (from taxis, trains, to buses)."

Reader Dao Duy Thieu also suggested prioritizing electric vehicles: "Electric vehicles are definitely a trend of the future that we cannot reverse because of their smoke-free, dust-free, noise-free characteristics... Therefore, there needs to be special support policies for the development of electric vehicles in terms of price, infrastructure, charging posts, battery exchange... The clearest example showing the positive impact of electric vehicles on Vietnamese people is the electric bus."