MoRe Death by Traffic in SàiGòn

Just thot i'd toss in my two đồng's worth in response to this extract from death by traffic in saigon at lost in translation, March 15th, 2007:

Crossing the streets as a pedestrian can be quite daunting at first... It was completely Greek to me until the point at which I had a traffic epiphany, and it just clicked. The secret to crossing the street is this: don’t hesitate. What happens is when you step out into the street, the oncoming automobiles, typically motorbikes, see you step into the street, and veer in a direction to dodge you, either to their left to stay out in front of you, or to your right to swing in behind you, either way, they expect you to keep moving forward and plan to compensate for your presence.

Here's my comment from there:

Mặc AD Marshall // Mar 15th 2007 at 7:04 pm

I was once told the French actually have an expression for much of what you just described: traversez la rue de mode vietnamienne — meaning roughly to to cross the street vietnamese style.

Personally, after a dozen years in SàiGòn, i still avoid crossing streets on foot. And, when i have to, i follow the rules i was taught as a kid in Canada: look both ways and point to where you’re going. It drives the locals nuts, but it works the same way as the way they’ll suddenly thrust out an arm to turn left or right and just turn without looking behind them: it doesn’t signal intent; it puts up an obstacle to passing.

And on a motorbike in Việt Nam, the only real rules of the road are the laws of physics. Touch anything and you’ll like have damage to you or your bike, if both aren’t written off completely.

Nonetheless, if you think walking in SighGone’s a bit of a kick, you really should try driving here. One long lost friend put a nice metaphor to it: it’s like swimming in a school of motorized fish. I’ll admit i’m totally addicted to it, despite three big dances with Death and scars to prove it.

But with thrills come spills. And i was a bit surprised i didn’t notice any mention of the fact that “death by traffic” is actually the number one cause of death in all Vietnam, not just SàiGòn.

From the first hit from http://www.google.com.vn/search?q=traffic+deaths+vietnam ::

Head injury in Vietnam
According to Dao, in the last seven years moving traffic in Vietnam has accounted for 30000 deaths and 94000 injuries.

Note: that’s from a 1997 article at http://www.helmets.org/vietnam.htm, but 2000 and 2004 updates are referred to on the same page.

Thanks & Cheers!

To monologue this thread a bit more, here's an extract from "Accident deaths highlight Vietnam's traffic crisis", AP, HANOI , Sunday, Dec 17, 2006 via the Taipei Times website:

Government statistics show traffic accidents, the leading cause of death in Vietnam, claim about 12,000 lives every year in the country of 84 million.

Some international organizations estimate the actual number is twice as high.

Doing the math, that's a rounded up average of 33-66 deaths per day.

HIV/AIDS, drug-abuse and unsafe sex have a lot of work to ahead of them if they want to merely catch up with good old outright recklessness here in Việt Nam...