When traffic police punish drivers for not keeping a safe distance, the lesson of the law is opened from the first page, after many years of being forgotten.
In 2022, the article on VnExpress's Perspective section titled "Driving in Vietnam" by Dr. Mark A.Ashwill, who has worked in Vietnam since 2005, received nearly 270 comments and especially there were no mixed opinions. The author's perspective on the chaos and impatience of a large number of drivers, unwilling to wait, unwilling to queue, creates a "never dull adventure". The author's conclusion can make many people ponder, saying: "The drivers around you are definitely your companions, not enemies or obstacles between you and your destination."
If you once drive on our highways, you will notice that many drivers do not consider the people around them as companions. Passenger cars drove wildly, flashing lights and honking loudly to steal traffic as if to say "get out of my way". Container trucks and tank trucks run at 60 km/h in lane 1 and ignore the traffic behind them. Drivers are ready to press the warning lights as a trick to squeeze into the emergency stop lane when there is congestion ahead. All of this is not how people treat friends, but how they treat opponents, even enemies.
When I first drove on the Autobahn in Germany, or on the highway in the US, I was quite nervous. The question that comes to mind is what to do to blend in with the traffic without having to worry about driving "unlikely". When I test drove a new Lexus model in California years ago, the company's instructor introduced everything but said nothing about speed limits or notes about being fined. I asked, they answered: just follow the traffic, they go, you go, everything is on the road.
And that's right, from the branch road, when turning on the turn signal to merge onto the highway, the car behind is willing to slow down. Once you merge with traffic, the brake becomes redundant, because with the right step on the accelerator, the car in front and behind you is half a football field away from you. If you want to change lanes? Of course, no driver will immediately step on the brake to slow you down to let you enter the lane. Just turn signal and wait patiently, a few times the car will pass by and there will be a gap large enough for you to steer into the lane.
Driving in the West is as natural as breathing, as legal regulations are shaped into education and culture as a matter of course. There, it's not impossible, but very rare, to have controversies about keeping a safe distance on the highway.
Safe distance: Of course physics
A car speeding at 80 km/h on the road needs a large enough distance to brake to stop. Basic physics has proven that the larger the vehicle mass, the higher the speed, and the more slippery the road surface condition, the greater the stopping distance. That means if you don't have enough distance from the car in front, you will hit someone in an emergency situation.
This law comes from your own safety, not from traffic organization or social order. Someone can argue about whether I can park my car on the street in front of someone else's house or not, because after all, it concerns the majority, not directly affecting that person. But arguing about a safe distance is not worth it, because it is a shield to protect you from the risk of an accident, it is for your own safety.
It's okay if you don't keep a safe distance and accept being fined. But are there many chances of being fined when you suddenly brake at 120 km/h while only 20 meters away from the car in front? Most importantly, the people in the car in front of you that you just hit, they didn't choose to do that crazy thing. The choice is for each person, but the law is for everyone.
The fine for not keeping a safe distance is similar to the mandatory wearing of helmets since 2008. At that time, in mid-2007, in a VnExpress poll about this regulation, only about 30% of readers thought that helmets should be worn on all roads, the rest thought it was only necessary on national highways or for people to be self-aware. After 18 years, wearing a helmet has become natural, and no one disputes its effectiveness.
Worried about the numbers
Besides those who oppose the safe distance law, a very large part of drivers are worried about the numbers in the law. That at 60 km/h the distance is 35 m, above 60-80 km/h it is 55 m, above 80-100 km/h it is 70 m. The worry starts here, how to measure 55 m and not 54 m, and will I be fined when the distance is only 54 but not 55?
Although the Traffic Police Department has repeatedly affirmed that it will only issue fines at points with close surveillance cameras, distance measuring markers, and distance markings on the road, the worry is still a worry, and it is clearly a legitimate worry.
Regulating a safe distance based on a specific number of meters can be difficult to apply in practice. Besides, the speeds of 81 km/h and 100 km/h are very different in terms of danger level and braking distance, but they share the same safe distance which is also relative. Western countries with a long-standing driving culture put distance rules in seconds (3 seconds) into law, making it easier for drivers to estimate, because the ultimate purpose of this is for drivers to calculate the safe distance as quickly as possible, not to create an exact numerical distance.
When drivers pay too much attention to the numbers, the consequence is that the overall speed of the vehicle flow decreases. The car leading the group traveled at a speed of 80 km/h, the following cars, fearing the distance, drove at 75 km/h, gradually pushing the overall speed to 60 km/h. At the same time, creating red lines on the map, even though they are very short, are not due to collisions or congestion, but just because a certain driver suddenly goes very slowly, forcing others to go slowly as well. Drivers who cannot wait and are impatient cause continuous lane reversals at close distances, i.e. reckless lane changes.
Advanced countries solve this problem with the law that the left lane is only for passing, reserved for fast vehicles. And after the information that the Traffic Police Department will strictly handle vehicles sticking to the left lane, increasing the minimum - maximum speed gap to only 20 km/h in lane 1 (for example, minimum 100, maximum 120), readers feel very happy because the long-standing pain point is about to be resolved.
Learn from the beginning, learn from where?
All the laws are uncontroversial, but problems arise when they are applied inconsistently. The changes that the Traffic Police Department is gradually applying will take a while for everything to operate smoothly, for drivers to gradually drive more synchronously, so that a safe distance is maintained but does not force everyone to slow down, and there are no more reckless drivers changing lanes quickly.
But the concept of driving does not "seep into the blood" of each driver when reading the dry laws, but is received naturally through the first person who "takes the job", which is the driving instructor. If sedans with "Practice Driving" signs still stick to the left lane at a speed of 60 km/h, if the teachers behind the wheel still tell students to keep the left lane for safety, no matter who wants to pass, they will change lanes, then that concept will follow every new driver for many years to come.
When everything is learned naturally, accepted naturally, we have the right to hope for a natural traffic system like in America, so that we can see the surrounding drivers on the highway as companions, not competitors.
