http://vnexpress.net/Vietnam/Xa-hoi/2004/04/3B9D1E07/


Traffic cops in HCM City soon might have someone else going into their pockets for a change.
To deal with the horrible corruption of the police force, the leadership of the HCM City Police Department is thinking about making it illegal for any of the dept's traffic officers to carry more than VND 50,000 in their pockets while on duty. Cops protest, saying it's not "practical" !

Quick and simplistic solution to a very complex and chronic problem...

That's a start for the country. Damn those cops and the people that corrupt Vietnam, we should drag them out to the streets and stone them to death or something.

Hey, If you was offered money wouldn't you take it?

Of course! But I will not accept bribery! AND I TRUST MYSELF IN THAT!

Just don't think of it as a bribe, rather as a gift

How can you think of it as a gift when you must fork it out? Don't you think there is a difference on being voluntary and involuntary?

I don't mind if the policeman asks for some cigarette money, but to target you (since you look like a Viet kieu) exclusively with bogus violations deserves nothing, not even a 200 dong note (no longer used).

50,000 VND? What is the exchange rate between U.S. dollars and Vietnamese Dong?

$1 dollar is around 14,500 dongs.

So they actually, purposely target Viet kieu and foreiners?
Now thats dirty..

Vietkieu only. Foreigners don't know the bribery rules. For the policemen, it's like bí mật võ công - they can't admit that's what they want, you have to suggest it.

Who else rides around Saigon without knowing where to go?

Yea, sounds good that the government is working on this problem..

lol.. stone them to death??
i say we drown them!!!

Let them moan and b!tch, even if it may not be the best, at least it's a start. Good news for traffic in VN, they will be placing cameras at most major intersections soon!

What's the use? They would assign a guy taking off after you and stopping you a couple of klicks away, somewhere they know there are definitely no cameras. You pay then. The cops are all in it together.

Don't know the logistics behind this new project but I say it's better than playing dumb and not act to confront such scandal.

Anything is better than nothing.

Yup, reform must start somewhere. I was actually surprised that it's starting already, thought the government would wait out a couple of more years to actually address these issues.

They are putting good resources into something that is so easy to bypass. The mechanism to prevent this type of abuse is to increase the officer's pay and to severely punish him if he is caught taking bribe. He then wouldn't risk his job for that sort of thing anymore.

Right now a policeman is paid around 400,000 dongs a month. 50,000 dongs per unsuspecting & intimidated Viet kieu and virtually no risk for himself seem like, well, duck soup....

They should be doing that AND educating its citizens from young age that bribery is wrong and that corruption in the government only hurts the people in the end.

But if the cameras are controlled in one center, how will the regular policemen manipulate its operation to their benefit? I am probably ignorant on this issue but I cannot see how ordinary joes can have access to a traffic camera while on duty.

If the purpose of the cameras is to catch officers taking bribes, then I'd say "good luck". The cameras are stationary and the officers are mobile. If they know where the cameras are located, they wouldn't go there to shake down the Vietkieus.

The problem with most socialist countries is that the government employees such as police officers and administrative staffs are so underpaid that they virtually had to take bribes to survive. You can't pay someone 400,000 dongs a month and expect him to survive in a very expensive environment like Saigon.

Vietnam, unfortunately, has a very large pool of labor that is employed by the State. The government employees are having a hard time competing with employees from the private sector who are paid 3x, sometimes 5x more.

And DAI_VIET wanted there to be more government employees by having more provinces

While there may seem to be too many provinces, each province is responsible for its own funding and does not depend on the support of the Central government. That has been the rule for Vietnam since 1990.

Yup yup yup yup.

This is the first start and a good start to erase rampant corruption in Vietnam. Vietnam ranked 3rd in Asia on a corruption index. I think 50,000 VND is plenty of money to spend or use it for anything while on duty. Don't understand why they are complaining about it except it prevents them from asking for bribes and taking bribes.

They are an organization and this what an organization does when it feels that it is being attacked.

This is nowhere near how corrupt the jailers are in California. Any district attorney here who prosecutes a jailer for beating a prisonner is automatically kicked out of the office. If you want to make a lot of money and have plenty of job security, go to work for the Cal Dept of Correction....$100K a year, no college degrees required, not even high school diplomas is required.

I live in Australia so I don't understand much of what you said. Care to explain?

In a nutshell, it's like the following.

To deal with increasing crimes, the state of California instituted a "three strikes" law some years back. The law automatically puts people in prison for the maximum sentence if they commit more than 3 offenses (no matter how small those offenses are). When California jails became full, the state government builds more and more and still more. Now California has more jails than schools and the people running the California prison system are becoming very politically powerful.

You don't want to live in the People's Republic of California. It's better to live in Australia where you are or better yet Vietnam, I tell you.

I don't believe this. Not in a democracy like the US anyway. If you say it's Texas then it is more plausible but not California.

Great job, I bet the benefit is good too. And they don't even have to be nice with the "clients"

Well, believe or not, it is your choice. I am justing telling you the perspective of someone who has lived in California for many decades.

California is not really a nice place to live like it is often portrayed on the US media. It is crime ridden and full of illegal immigrants. It is further saddled by a very large state government bureaucracy that does very little except justifying its existence. There are no jobs here but the government keeps insisting that people pay taxes and put up with the very standard of living. Very screwed up place in my humble opinion.

See all the tv commercials depicting all the fun under the California sun? Those bonfires on the beach at night with beautiful blonde girls around? That's all but a myth. You light a fire on a state-owned beach and you go directly to the slammer, my friend.

Sounds like Texas to me.


That's funny, when I stayed in SF, I saw people having bonfires every night at the beaches on the west (pacific side).

No the cameras are being installed for traffic purposes like here in the States since accidents are reaching an alarming high over there.

California is actually behind Texas in many things. California ranks last in education spending - behind places like DC, Alabama and Mississippi. Johnny simply can't read here.

That might be a private beach. The fine is $1,000 if you do so on state-owned beaches. Anyway, I am not very far from the Pacific Coast Highway and often use it to go to Brisbane. I don't remember seeing any bonfires at night along the side of the road.

California is dealing with overcrowding population, a very soft economy and many other unsurmountable problems. All the politicians do is mortgage the government budget and force the future generation to pay for it. If you live here, your kids all end up paying for it.

That's sad. Texas is bad enough... I've lived here for over 14 years, I should know


It was a beach off of the "Great Highway". There is this building on a cliff nearby. I don' tbelieve it was private as it was open to the public.

And they figure the cameras are going to solve the traffic problems in Saigon? Hah..I guess the government of Vietnam does have a very good sense of imagination. The cameras in the US are designed to catch speeders and red-light runners. There are no speeders or red lights in Vietnam (I mean there are red lights in VN but no one obeys it so the police simply can't catch everyone. That's equivalent to not having any at all)

Last year, the official number of fatalities triples the previous year. Around 12,000 Vietnamese died a year due to traffic accidents.

I don't know about that. It may be a group of people who could afford to pay for a permit for it. You can't do it without a permit from either the municipal government (if it is a city-owned beach) or the state government (if it is a state-owned beach).

The permit is usually very expensive since the government doesn't want be liable for accident or for clean up work.

So true, and Pete Wilson was the catalyst that caused the downfall of our education system. As for Texas, my dad went to a helicopter convention in Houston last month and he loved the city, he kept phoning home saying how it's nice and quiet over there but in general though, I think that any state will have it's problems and I wouldn't chose California over any other, it has lax atmosphere and multiculturalism and is the 5th largest economy in the world, no comment on our politics though.

Uhm...

I lived in Houston more than half of my life. I can tell you Houston sucks big time. Our city has barely 3 million people but it has like a 30 mile radius. It is so spread out and takes FOREVER to get to anywhere. People here spend average of 2 - 4 hours on the road everyday. We have no efficient public transportation system because the city is spread so thin. We have 8 months of humid summer, the rest of the year is our hurrican season. Whenever it rains, it floods. Flood insurance is very popular here. Houston floods because it was built on top of a swamp.

The people here are generally backwards and conservative. Yeah, it can be nice and quiet, but only because Houston is a overgrown suburb and not a true metropolitan area.

Well yeah he took on a tourist perspective of course and I gotta admit, Texas sure isn't the place for tree-hugging, flower-power hyppies to be roaming around advocating pro-life issues.

I guess that's why I saw fatal accidents everytime I visited Vietnam (all on Quoc Lo I toward the Mekong Delta. I don't know who are crazier, those Viet minivan drivers or the Big Apple's cabbies!!!)

Vietnamese traffic is terrible. People die or got injured everyday. When I was in Vietnam, I practiced driving a scooter. It was a pretty intimidating experience considering other drivers are sometimes no more than 2 meters in front or at the back of you and less than half a meter on your either sides. It was fun though to ride around the city at night. Nice and cool and kinda busting.

I've been told that if you accidentally run over someone on the road, you'll only pay around VND$20,000,000. That's around 2000 AUD or 1300 USD. Cheap lives eh? Pretty sad though.

Because I've ridden much bigger bikes here in the States (750cc-900cc), it was kinda fun and weird for me at the same time. Despite how easy to handle and marneuverable those little bikes were , I found that it was very intimidating and tiring on Saigon's noisy and busy roads. My road trip from Vinh Long to Can Tho to Rach Gia to Ha Tien was wonderful, though. I'd like to do a HCM-Hanoi trip in the future, too.

1,300 USD ? Crap, live is certainly pretty cheap there huh !

my mom went back 2 VN during the new year.. and she travelled from like Nha Trang all the way to Sapa on Quoc Lo I .. and they recorded the trip.. omg.. the driving was scary!!.. there is like no such thing as lane... especially near deo Hai Van.. my heart almost popped out!! i'm serious. They really need to do something with the driving law..

I hear ya. Although we might not have to go around on the Hai Van Pass for much longer, I've heard they almost finish the tunnel through the mountain there.

You guys are cowards...J/K Where are your sense of adventure?

Tattra,

Try the montrous Russian Minsk next time you are in the northern part of Vietnam. 125cc two-stroke that spews various smokes and stinks in the air.... I rode it from Lao Cay to Sapa.

no Doan Du, the on-coming cars are in ur lane!!.. u switch lanes at the end of the curve or something... i went on Deo Hai Van b4.. but that was when i was like 9.. i dun know sh!t.. but now.. i'm glad they finish the tunnel... Doan Du is way 2 brave!!