Skip to main content

Pump it up

Vietnam's ministry of health has prompted comment and bemusement in the country after saying that people with chests measuring less than 720mm will no longer be allowed to drive motorcycles. The proposal comes as part of health criteria requiring Vietnam's drivers to be in good physical health to try to improve safety on the roads in a country where motorcycles account for 90% of vehicle traffic. However many Vietnamese people are slight of stature and this particular proposal has generated considerable amu
July 6, 2012 Read time: 1 min
Vietnam's ministry of health has prompted comment and bemusement in the country after saying that people with chests measuring less than 720mm will no longer be allowed to drive motorcycles. The proposal comes as part of health criteria requiring Vietnam's drivers to be in good physical health to try to improve safety on the roads in a country where motorcycles account for 90% of vehicle traffic. However many Vietnamese people are slight of stature and this particular proposal has generated considerable amusement as well as negative comment. Many have suggested that such rules could be beaten by silicon implants, although these would only be an option for the minority of affluent city dwellers. Questions have also been asked as to whether police will employ tape measures to check on drivers who they suspect of having too small a chest.

Related Content

  • Improve highway barriers to cope with higher speed
    February 24, 2012
    The UK association Britpave, the British In-situ Concrete Paving Association group, is keen to ensure that the country’s major highways will be able to cope with proposed speed limit increases. According to Britpave much of the UK motorway central reservation barriers may not be fit-for-purpose if the speed limit is increased from112-128km/h (70-80mph) as proposed recently.
  • CECE 2018 conference Rome: the sector powers up for digitisation
    March 20, 2019
    Getting the human-machine interface for equipment automation right is a lot trickier than expected. David Arminas reports from the CECE conference in Rome For many contractors, digitisation is key for improving on-site operational efficiency. But it may be time to take stock of progress and examine what does and doesn’t work. That is not to say that the anchors should be thrown out to halt development. Far from it. In the past eight months, the CECE - Committee for European Construction Equipment – led
  • Let’s go party
    October 3, 2018
    Some friends in the US decided to turn a toy Barbie Mustang car into something rather more entertaining. The men fitted a Honda motorcycle engine and new driveline components, including go-kart tyres. This allowed a top speed of 115km/h, which it could reach in just six seconds, making it rather lively and spirited and also difficult to control. The vehicle is definitely not likely to be made road legal any time soon and nor is a model with a similar performance ever likely to be available from the original
  • Safer roads needed for the gig economy
    May 14, 2019
    Roads everywhere are becoming high-pressure workplaces for millions of gig economy workers, meaning traffic police need a new way to regulate how highways are used. Geoff Hadwick reports from Manchester, UK The way in which the world’s highways are designed, built and used needs to change fast as the gig economy becomes a global phenomenon. Millions of low-paid and badly-trained freelance drivers are now using road as their workplace, all of them working hard under huge amounts of pressure. The tren