Busting traffic limits in Vietnam

This deliveryman had a very unique passenger on his motorcycle in Hanoi on Tuesday - a bust of the late Vietnamese president Ho Chi Minh.

Motorcycles are widely used in Vietnam. As of last year, Ho Chi Minh City alone had 7.43 million motorcycles carrying all manner of goods and passengers, putting serious pressure on the city's transport infrastructure.

Adding to this are the more than one million motorcycles brought in by migrants, bringing the total count to about 8.5 million, the highest in the country, reported Thanh Nien News.

The Department of Transport said many of the city's residents prefer motorcycles over buses or cars.

For many in the city, riding a motorcycle is a hard habit to break, it added. The local government is also hesitant to apply measures to reduce the use of the vehicles, such as increasing registration fees.

But there is some good news. The Department of Transport also reported that the number of fatalities caused by road crashes in 2015 had decreased, despite the increasing number of motorcycles on the roads.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on June 29, 2017, with the headline Busting traffic limits in Vietnam. Subscribe