Short answer: failing to obey a red signal on a motorbike is fined 4,000,000–6,000,000 VND under Article 7(7)(c) of Decree 168/2024/NĐ-CP, with four points deducted from the licence. For a lone rider it is in the top band of ordinary fines — the same family as counterflow riding and riding on the sidewalk — and a red-light run that causes a crash escalates into the 10–14 million VND accident band and possible criminal liability.
What the law requires at the line
Article 11 of the Law on Road Traffic Order and Safety (No. 36/2024/QH15) sets the mechanics: red prohibits movement, yellow means stop before the stop line unless already past it, green means go but pedestrian priority survives. The decree prices disobedience. Two details decide most disputes: the stop line — the duty is met by being behind it, and a bike that creeps across while the light is red has run it — and the hierarchy — a police officer’s hand signal outranks the lamp, so “the officer waved me through” is a defence only when the officer actually waved.
There is no licence suspension for a red-light run on a motorbike; the price is money and points. Two tickets take a third of the licence; three take half. Points restore only on the schedule of the points system — deductions are not paid away.
How red lights are actually caught
Three routes produce the fine. A checkpoint sees it and stops the rider — licence checked, decision written on the spot. A junction camera photographs it — the notice travels by post to the registered owner, payable online or at the listed counters. An officer’s following stop after the junction does the same. For a rental bike, the camera route is the common one, and the notice lands at the shop: the shop pays or contests, and the renter meets the cost through the deposit terms. A visitor who flew home weeks earlier is not outside the system’s reach; the plate was the address.
If the light was amber, or the junction was blocked
The amber line is the honest edge of the rule: crossing on amber is legal only if the bike was already on or past the stop line when the signal changed. Riders who accelerate at amber to “make it” are gambling exactly the fine they think they are avoiding. Blocked-junction entries — rolling into a red-occupied crossing on green and finishing it on red — are the greyest practical case; the camera sees a bike moving in the junction on red, and the argument that the green launched it is argued through the objection procedure, not assumed.
The cost of a saved thirty seconds
The bands make the trade explicit: the red-light run saves seconds and prices at millions, points and — when the cross traffic arrives — bodies. In Hanoi’s dense grid, the collision a red run produces is almost always a direct broadside from traffic that had green. Waiting at the empty-seeming red at 05:30 on Nguyễn Văn Cừ costs nothing; the camera at the box does not know the hour.
Information, not legal advice. Verified against Law 36/2024/QH15 and Decree 168/2024/NĐ-CP on 2026-09-22.