Joe Ruelle, a young Canadian man, who has been very famous in Vietnam for his fluent Vietnamese skills, complained that one of the unpleasant thing when living in Vietnam is that there is too much noise which one cannot avoid.
In Hanoi, car and motorbike drivers can beep the horn loudly everywhere, on big roads, or small alleys, and anytime, no matter it is early in the morning or at midnight.
In fact, the current laws do not allow vehicle drivers to blow the horns spontaneously. However, the laws have not been respected by people, while their behaviors do not meet the protest from the community and the police do not impose punishment on the behaviors.
A horn is the tool for vehicle drivers to give signals to others on the traffic, but Hanoians have been using it just to show off their brand new motorbikes, or to annoy others. Some people like blowing the horns even when the other vehicles remain far away from them, while others would beep the horns when they are close to others, so as to make the other people get start.
In Hanoi, when a car driver wants to pass another, he would beep the horn loudly instead of giving signals, even though the cars ahead shut all the doors and turn on air conditioners. In rush hours, the streets turn crowded and boisterous with the noise from engines, the noise from households, and the smell from exhaust fume.
Especially, people can be tormented by repeated hoots. People are afraid of the hoots from buses and trucks, equipped with the horns which can frighten anyone. This kind of horn is so useful in frightening people that many motorbike drivers also install them for their vehicles.
Dr Pham Tien Dung from the HCM City Branch of the Institute for Scientific Research and Labor Safety Technique said that the noise pollution would cause neural inhibition, create tension and have negative impacts on people’s works and studying. Hanoians also have to live together with
the air pollution. Dr Pham Ngoc Dang from the Vietnam Construction Environment Association, who spent many years on studying the environment in Hanoi, said the air pollution is getting more and more serious.
The suspended dust concentration in air is always higher by 2-3 times than the allowed level. The figures would be much higher, by 5-10 times on the construction sites or road maintenance sites. Especially, the pollution would be even more serious in traffic jams, where all motor vehicles produce smoke at the same time.
According to ARIA Technologies, Hanoi is the city which has the smallest percentage of public transport means in Asia. Every year, Hanoi has 180,000 more put into traffic, including 20,000 cars and 160,000 motorbikes.
This means that the number of transport means increases by 12-15 percent per annum. By 2011, the total number of motor vehicles in the city had increased to four million. Meanwhile, the petrol run engines are believed to be the biggest culprit that causes air pollution.
Culturists have pointed out that the behaviors of Hanoians have made the air pollution in Hanoi more serious. Rubbish has been thrown streets, while dumping grounds have become overloaded.
Meanwhile, Hanoi lacks greenery areas. Reports show that the public verdure in Hanoi is just 2 square meters per capita, much lower than that of HCM City (3.3 square meters per capita), Hue (3.5), Hai Duong (3.7).
Tra My
(MONRE)