Traffic Test – Viet Nam Style (By the Mystery Guest Blogger)

Traffic in Viet Nam consists of a few trucks, vans and taxi cabs, motorbikes, cyclos and bicycles.  There are lines painted on the road, designated crosswalks, and the occasional traffic light at a major intersection.  You take note of these and use them, but these alone will not enable you to function in traffic.

As we said when we came here on vacation, the traffic appears to be nuts, until you realize the majority of the vehicles – motorbikes and bicycles – are traveling intuitive of one another, rather like a flock of birds or a school of fish.

Since we have lived here, we have learned the real way the traffic works as demonstrated in the questions below.  (Be sure to click on the photos to see a larger version.)

1.    You are riding your bicycle in the far right side of a street, as you should be – the less speedy vehicles to the right, please – and around the corner to your right comes a motorbike, toward you, hugging the curb also. (Circled in red in picture.)   On which side should you pass this motorbike?

If you know this answer, you have ridden a bicycle in Viet Nam.  You allow the motorbike to stay tight to the curb, because it is seeking to turn into a driveway or the next street.  It is trying to stay out of your way, and expect you to give it some easement.

2.    You are riding your bicycle in the far right side of a street, again, and catch up to a cyclo (say 'sik lo') going in your direction.   On which side do you pass the cyclo?

Here’s what to consider about this situation.  The cyclo is going slowly, and though he is larger and heavier to you, is no immediate threat.  It might be safe to pass on either side.  If traffic is light in both directions – there isn’t apt to be a motorbike using the middle of the road to pass slower moving traffic – it is wise to pass on the left.  Unless you are able to see clearly past the cyclo in all directions, you might miss a stopped vehicle, people walking, or food lady parked at a curb, which would soon block you if you pass on the right.  If motorbike traffic is heavy, slide behind another bicycle, and do what they do, but quickly!

3.    When riding your bicycle through an intersection with a traffic light, you can easily get through a yellow light, true or false?

First of all, the green lights are very quick, just long enough to get the waiting traffic through the light.  And the yellow light is even quicker.  Since I am anything but quick on my bicycle, I don’t even go through a green light if I am the last bicycle to reach it, for when the light changes I will be descended upon by a herd of motorbikes, ready to weave around me.  These are especially intimidating.  They are loud.  They are quick.  They are ridden largely by people who used to ride bicycles, so they understand my lack of speed and maneuverability, and they probably will do their best to avoid me.  But they are as unsettling to me as hearing out-of-control snowboarders come up from behind me while skiing.  I wait for the next light.  It will be quick in coming.

4.    While approaching an intersection without a traffic light, what does the safe bicyclist look for while proceeding through it, and how is speed adjusted?

I look first, as far as I can see in both directions for trucks.  They are driven by young men who used to ride bicycles and motorbikes, who can go now much faster than the rest of the traffic.  I generally cruise on my bike, as going fast makes me work up a sweat, defeating the pleasantness of the breeze, and doesn’t give me enough time to assess traffic.  So, I look for trucks, or other large vehicles.  Then I look for large numbers of motorbikes together.  You see, they don’t want to hit me any more than I want them to, but if they are in a large pack, they are less maneuverable, and would have more trouble avoiding me.  As for adjusting speed, I am less apt to have a problem from motorbikes, who can easily avoid me, if I maintain my speed.  They will discern my path, and turn slightly so I am not in their path, and go behind me.  You see, traffic in Viet Nam is not a contest.  Everyone knows how long it takes them to get anywhere on their vehicle, and the place is too small to ‘make up time.’  Grace is given to me by a faster, heavier, more maneuverable vehicle because it can, and because the point isn’t that I am in their way, or they are in a hurry.  Everyone gets there in the same amount of time, because the motorbike realizes where I will be when our paths would cross, and adjusts his path to go behind me.  Ya gotta love it, right?

5.    How do you turn left at a busy intersection without a traffic light?

There are so few traffic lights in Hue that are working all the time, assuming the power is not flickering today, that I can count the ones I know on 2 or 3 fingers.  At night or during rest time mid-day – about 11:30 to 1:30 – many of the lights are not needed, so they turn them off.  Learning to cross or turn left with no mechanical help is a challenge.  To learn to turn left, go back and read question #1.  The bicycle approaching you on the wrong side of the road, hugging the curb, (highlighted in red) has just turned left at a busy intersection.  If this bicycle does not want to make a turn to its left – a driveway or another street – as soon as you pass and the oncoming (to that bike) traffic thins, it makes its way to cross to the center of the road to get in the proper place, hanging out near the right curb.  The American way to turn left is to get all the way up to the intersection, and stop to wait for a break in the motorbike traffic.  Well, guess what?  It is not gonna break anytime soon.  And further more, you are now blocking the traffic behind you, and are in danger of being in an accident.  You may not get hit while you are stopped, but as soon as you start moving, other drivers will begin to try to guess your intended direction and speed, but it will only be a guess.  At all costs, when riding your bike, or crossing a street on foot, maintain your speed and direction.  That you are predictable to others is what makes this flock of birds work as smoothly as it does.

 

6.    Viet Nam has a very high rate of traffic accidents, true or false?

True, Viet Nam does have a high rate of traffic accidents.  More and more people on the road, in more and more of a hurry.  But in our sleepy, little overgrown town of Hue, I have only seen one accident.  And we are not only on the streets a lot walking and riding, but most places for most meals we have a pretty good view of traffic.  The accident I saw, or rather heard, and then peeked to look at, involved a motorbike which apparently clipped the handlebar of a bicycle going in the opposite direction.  Both drove off, unhurt.  We are talking ‘someone was probably not where they were supposed to be.’

Traffic is intuitive in Viet Nam.  And that intuition flies in the face of Western good sense based on traffic in the States.  If more vehicles are going in one direction than the other, that traffic takes up more than half of the road.  It actually eases over the center, with motorbikes passing everyone, but would never crowd out the opposite flow.  If I am in the path of a motorbike, he goes around me; he doesn’t get upset and bully me for being in the way. The point is to get everyone to their destination.  And while we say it at home, but rarely mean it, it works in Viet Nam to say, “What’s your hurry?”

7.    What do you do when you are approaching two girls on separate bicycles, holding hands? 

Smile, and know you are in Viet Nam. 

xoxo - c

Comments

[Cottontimer]

Hi. I made my way here via NoodlePie. You (and your mystery blogger) have a wonderfully upbeat blog.

Just wanted to say that I do the same as you with regards to crossing the street in Saigon. If I don't make it to the intersection when the light has just turned green, I wait until the next round. I know the locals think I'm nuts but I'm always carrying a toddler in my arms and can't dodge danger as fast as I'd like.

[Russ]

I just read in the paper recently were it has been 40 years since Mike Wallace did the National Drivers Test on CBS. I remember watching that so intently as a 11 year old. Probably would not work in Vietnam.