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PaperclipPerfector  29d ago (text post)   1039 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 30, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Vietnam government increased traffic violation fines by 10x. For example, red light violations by motorbikes went from $32-40 to $175-235. Although this is a step in the right direction for a country that is ranked 22 in terms of traffic deaths in 2019, most people are feeling the pain in terms of increased congestion. Drivers drive safer and more legally, and therefore slower. Possible negative externalities here are increased pollution from the legion of motorbikes "stuck" behind red light (whereas before they can just "find a way" and continue with their travel). My friend in Vietnam gives another negative externality, which is that the police are now given perverse incentive to slow down traffic even more for "tea money". He says that at a nearby crossing for him has now been changed to 40s of red for 10s of green. Anyway, I'll see how this shakes out in about half a year or so.

I'm hopeful that Vietnam can follow the same developmental trajectory as its neighbors in the Sinosphere, and the clearing out of motorbikes and ordering of street traffic is certainly part of that (unless you're Taiwan). So far they've only just managed to climb out of the rut the wars of the 20th century left them in and the real test of their economic potential is yet to come. Assuming their PISA scores are not all fake, then I am optimistic that they can get to around where China is now within a couple of decades.

I'm surprised they went ahead with such a measure. I visited Vietnam about a decade ago, and it was an accepted meme over there that traffic lights were a suggestion rather than a hard rule.

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