The Khanh Hoa Province Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism has issued a decision to ban tourist companies in the province from leasing motorbikes to foreign visitors who do not meet legal requirements, the department head said.   The new regulation was issued in the implementation of Official Letter No. 934 dated August 21 by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism requesting that all Departments of Culture, Sports and Tourism nationwide not lease motorbikes to foreign visitors who are ineligible for such a lease, Truong Dang Tuyen, director of the Department, said in an interview with Tuoi Tre about this issue. Most foreign visitors to the south-central province do not have a Vietnam-issued driver’s license, and have not mastered local traffic patterns, yet they wish to hire motorbikes as a means of daily travel. As a result, several traffic accidents, some of which have been deadly, have been caused by foreigners driving motorbikes in Khanh Hoa, Tuyen said. At the 9th annual Vietnam-Russia consular consultation conference in Moscow on July 9, the Russian side proposed that Vietnam authorities not allow Russian visitors to Vietnam to hire a motorbike if they do not have a valid, Vietnam-granted driver’s license, Tuyen said. Russian insurers will pay no compensation in relation to any traffic accidents caused by drivers without a license, Tuyen cited the Russian side as saying. Therefore, Tuyen said, the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism has that requested all tourist companies based in the province not offer motorbike leasing services to foreigners if they fail to show a valid driver’s license. “We will also ask hotels and other accommodation facilities for foreigners to comply with the new regulation for safety reasons,” Tuyen said.Difficulties in changing driver’s licenses Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Quoc Dung, head of the province’s Nha Trang City Traffic Police, said that under Vietnamese laws, foreigners who stay for more than three months in Vietnam and hold a valid international or national driver’s license can apply for a corresponding driver’s license granted by Vietnam. However, Dung said, most of the foreigners who have hired motorbikes in the coastal tourist city of Nha Trang are travellers who usually stay in the city for only a few weeks, not up to three months, as required by current regulations. Dung also added that most foreigners hold a driver’s license for cars, but under Vietnamese laws, anyone who holds a car license still has to undergo a test if they want to get a motorbike license. Meanwhile, Nguyen Van Dan, deputy director of the provincial Transport Department, noted that the most difficult criteria for foreigners to meet in such a test is that they must have knowledge of the Vietnamese language.