TL;DR: Choosing departure dates, blessing new vehicles, hanging safety amulets, and building roadside shrines are common spiritual practices among Vietnamese travellers. Anthropologist Nguyễn Đăng Hựu (2016) reads them as ways of seeking spiritual security and controlling risk in an uncertain traffic environment, not as a substitute for practical safety measures. These rituals meet a real psychological need, but actual road safety still comes from helmets, reasonable speed, and not drinking alcohol while driving.
Why do Vietnamese seek road safety through spirituality?
Getting around on Vietnam's roads is a highly uncertain activity. The World Health Organization's 2015 global status report on road safety ranked road traffic injuries eighth among causes of death worldwide, with more than 1.2 million lives lost each year. In this context, Vietnamese turn to spiritual practices as a way of managing psychological risk. In 2016, in the journal Nghiên cứu Tôn giáo (Religious Studies Review), anthropologist Nguyễn Đăng Hựu published a survey of spiritual concepts and practices related to the search for road safety among Vietnamese in central Vietnam and a few other localities. He showed that these are ways of seeking spiritual security and controlling risk amid the complexity of traffic.
Nguyễn Đăng Hựu's research used an anthropological approach to religion and magic, focusing on Vietnamese in central Vietnam and a few other localities, and does not represent all Vietnamese nationwide.
How do Vietnamese pray for safety when traveling?
How do you choose a departure date?
Vietnamese often consult auspicious dates before starting a long trip or buying a new vehicle. They turn to fortune tellers and ritual specialists to choose good days and hours and avoid bad ones. According to Nguyễn Đăng Hựu, when making decisions, setting out on a risky journey, or engaging in traffic both literally and metaphorically, many Vietnamese seek out masters to predict and select dates in order to avoid risk.
In folk belief, choosing a good date and hour for departure is trusted to make the journey smooth and to avoid accidents and misfortune. This belief exists not only in rural areas but also in cities, where people still maintain the habit of consulting dates before major undertakings.
What does blessing a new vehicle mean?
When buying a new vehicle, many Vietnamese families hold a vehicle-blessing ceremony. Offerings typically include fruit, incense and lamps, votive paper, and sometimes boiled chicken or pork. The ritual is meant to wish peace and luck for the owner and passengers. Nguyễn Đăng Hựu notes that the practical effectiveness of vehicle-blessing rituals as magical acts cannot be proven, and their value is unverified. Nevertheless, owners gain mental reassurance and faith in safety and smooth travel on uncertain roads.
Folk belief holds that a vehicle also has a soul and needs divine protection. Blessing the vehicle is not only a ritual but also a way for the owner to show reverence to the gods and ask for protection on every road.
What do safety amulets and lucky charms do?
Many people hang amulets, charms, or spiritual objects in their vehicles for luck and peace. According to Nguyễn Đăng Hựu, amulets and lucky charms for vehicles have crossed both cultural and national borders. He recounts the case of a restaurant owner in Sa Pa: the owner said the Tibetan singing bowl in the car came from Hekou, while the cloth amulet attached in front of the steering wheel was ordered by a friend and consecrated by a ritual master in Kunming, China.
Items such as cloth amulets, singing bowls, small Buddha statues, or lucky straps are often hung on the rearview mirror or placed on the dashboard. People believe these objects can ward off evil spirits and accidents and bring luck to the driver.
What do roadside shrines and accident sites mean?
Along roads, especially dangerous stretches, there are often small shrines honouring deities or the spirits of accident victims. Travellers often stop to offer incense and pray for protection. These shrines are built where serious traffic accidents have occurred, in the belief that the souls of the dead need comfort and travellers need protection.
The custom of building roadside shrines and offering incense when passing is part of traffic spirituality culture. People believe that accident sites carry heavy negative energy, and that worship helps soothe spirits while protecting travellers from similar disasters.
How do researchers understand these practices?
Malinowski's theory: magic where technique cannot fully control
Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, in "Magic, Science and Religion" published in 1925, offered one of the foundational theories for understanding magic and ritual. He argued that magic appears in domains where humans cannot fully control outcomes through technique and knowledge. Malinowski argued that magic is an attempt to operate laws that primitive people did not understand, and it is used in difficult situations involving mysterious and frightening events in nature and human life.
Malinowski stressed that magic differs from religion in that it always aims at a concrete result, while primitive religion expresses mental states such as sadness, hope, and despair without pursuing practical ends.
Stress and the need for control: Keinan (2002)
Giora Keinan's psychological study published in 2002 in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin examined the relationship between stress, the need for control, and superstitious behaviour. Keinan found that stress increases superstitious behaviour in people with a high need for control. The results were based on participant groups in Israel and should be applied cautiously to Vietnamese people, as no similar study has been conducted on Vietnamese.
When people feel out of control and stressed, according to Keinan's research, they tend to turn to superstitious behaviours as a way to restore a sense of control.
Spiritual security: Salemink's (2010) theoretical framework
Oscar Salemink, in "Ritual Efficacy, Spiritual Security and Human Security: Spirit Mediumship in Contemporary Vietnam" (2010), expanded the concept of human security to include existential security. He argued that the search for spiritual security in travel is a form of seeking existential safety, tied to the pursuit of physical safety. Salemink identifies four types of insecurity requiring spiritual adjustment: physical and mental health problems; economic insecurity and market risk; existential insecurity related to death; and the intentional embrace and management of risk.
Salemink argues that when insecurities cannot be resolved by other means, people often seek spiritual security through religious and magical practice.
Synthesis: ritual as psychological risk control
Nguyễn Đăng Hựu combines these theories to explain the phenomenon of traffic spirituality in Vietnam. According to him, the flourishing of spiritual and magical practices in the traffic domain reflects deep insecurity about risks beyond control, leading people to seek additional protection from external forces. These practices do not replace practical safety measures but add a layer of spiritual security for road users.
What is in the summary table of studies and frameworks?
| Author (year) | Data scope | Main conclusion |
|---|---|---|
| Nguyễn Đăng Hựu (2016) | Vietnamese in central Vietnam and a few other localities | Spiritual practices for road safety are ways of controlling psychological risk and seeking spiritual security |
| Bronislaw Malinowski (1925) | Comparative anthropological research | Magic appears where technique cannot fully control outcomes |
| Giora Keinan (2002) | Participants in Israel | Stress increases superstitious behaviour in people with a high need for control |
| Oscar Salemink (2010) | Contemporary Vietnam | Spiritual security is a form of existential security |
What does Nhật Nguyệt suggest?
Safety rituals for travel meet a real psychological need: the need to feel secure against unpredictable risks. Choosing dates, blessing vehicles, or hanging amulets may help road users feel more confident and calm, which can positively influence driving behaviour. However, it must be emphasised that these practices do not replace practical road safety measures. Real safety comes from wearing a helmet properly, obeying speed limits, not drinking alcohol while driving, and regularly checking the vehicle. Rituals can provide peace of mind, but road safety requires concrete and responsible actions.
What remains unproven and what research comes next?
There are currently no statistics on the proportion of Vietnamese who perform vehicle-blessing rituals, choose departure dates, or hang safety amulets. No study has examined the relationship between these rituals and actual traffic accident rates. Existing studies are mainly qualitative and theoretical, with no empirical evidence on the effectiveness of spiritual practices for road safety.
Keinan's (2002) study was conducted on participants in Israel, not on Vietnamese. Applying its results to the Vietnamese context requires verification by independent studies.
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To learn more about how the Five Elements are applied in choosing a vehicle that suits one's destiny, you can refer to the article Five Elements Application: Choosing a Car That Matches Your Destiny.
