Advisory sites: Tales of Asia

The Tales of Asia site is a long running site concerning 'No nonsense information on travel and living in Cambodia'. End of quote. It's a collection of stories starting from around the turn of the century focusing mainly on incoming tourists particularly in Siem Reap. There used to be a forum but that is now defunct.

Under 'FAQ (and not so FAQ) Transportation' section they carry the following (hopefully this is a not so FAQ): If I'm involved in an accident, what could happen?

The answer is partly as follows:

... Anyway, what happens at an accident scene is first, every Khmer for miles comes around to watch what's going on. If you're injured they will try to help. This is unfortunate as help usually means picking up the unconscious victim and shaking him or her in an effort to revive them. I don't even want to think about how many accident victims were further injured by this practice, but regrettably, as the average Khmer knows nothing of proper medical procedures, shaking the unconscious person seems like the right thing to do.

...

Other questions asked (and answered are : how is the train service? A.: Cheap, painfully slow, uncomfortable, scenic, friendly, limited, ...)

More in this vein. Another of the FAQ sections relates to : Legalities: visas, police, corruption:

Q: What if I'm riding a motorcycle (or driving a car) and the police stop me?

A: If you drive in Cambodia - car or motorcycle, sooner or later, probably sooner, you're going to be stopped by the police for some infraction which you may or may not have committed.

If you can avoid running over the police officer and there's no one sitting on a motorbike that's as big or bigger than yours and ready to give chase, then there's no reason to stop for the police. However, if you do have to stop, it works like this:

In Cambodia you do not hand over your license, registration, and insurance proof because hardly anybody has all three let alone even one. But the very first thing you do is remove the keys from the ignition and put them in your pocket. If you don't, the police might do it themselves and you do not want to be in this situation. What you then find out is what your infraction is and then see what amount of money is requested. As a foreigner the initial request is usually somewhere between $5 and $20. $5 is silly, $20 is simply hilarious and if you are moronic enough to pay $20, well, you deserved it, then.Traffic infractions in Cambodia cost from between 2000 and 5000 riels (that's 50 cents to a $1.25). There is absolutely no reason whatsoever you should ever pay more than this.

In most cases, you stand around with the police for a few minutes chatting and smoking cigarettes. In a majority of instances, the whole affair is very friendly and there is no reason for you to become indignant. This is a game not a duel.

...

But receipt or no receipt, the most important things to remember are:

1.)Immediately remove the keys from the ignition and put them in your pocket.
2.) Be friendly.
3.) Pay no more than 5000 riels.

Good advice? At least it's clear. Drive carefully and avoid police seems to be the best way around traffic in Cambodia, pretty similar elsewhere in the wild world?

Fair deal?

As an avid reader of this blog may have noticed, Cambodia's over the Gulf of Thailand's neighbour, Malaysia, is a world apart from Cambodia. Or is it?
The Government of Malaysia perceives that ensuring road safety is an essential part of their core tasks and is trying in various innovative ways to improve road safety. The government site Panducermat.org.my [sorry, link has been severed by Malaysian government, see blog on February 26] focuses on this and one way of achieving this has been through a Hall of Fame / Shame. However, to induce the public to help during the upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations, the general public has been requested to send photo's of offenders and will reward the best entrants with a daily cash bonus of 150 MR (a little more than 40 $US). At least that what's what they intend, according to their own site:

Photograph offenders, get reward
Nurris Ishak and V.SHuman

KUALA LUMPUR: If you are on the road anytime from today until Feb 25, watch out.

You will be watched all the way along federal roads and highways.

The police, the Road Transport Department and the Road Safety Department are working in concert to ensure road fatalities are reduced this Chinese New Year season.

And they are not the only ones keeping an eye out for errant motorists.

The Road Safety Department has invited public to submit photographs of motorists committing traffic offences.

To ensure good response, it is having a competition for the best picture.

The holiday season competition was launched on Friday and will end on Feb 25, with daily rewards of RM150 for the best picture of the day, and RM100 and RM50 for second and third best pictures.

The pictures will be displayed on the department’s "Hall of Shame/Hall of Merit" website.

"The cash rewards are only for a limited period and will run until Feb 25.

"We want to get the public to participate in our efforts to make our roads safer and the rewards are our way of showing our appreciation for the public’s efforts," said department director-general Datuk Suret Singh.

"We are getting the community involved in an effort to make Malaysian roads safer.

"When they take pictures of queue jumpers, overloaded lorries or motorists running the red light, they give us the information we need to nab the culprits.

"They can send the pictures to the website and get rewarded for their efforts," said Suret.

Suret said the pictures posted at the "Hall of Shame" at www.panducermat.org.my would be the "censored" versions, with the car plate numbers blurred.

"The original pictures will show the vehicles’ number plates. The information will be passed to the Road Transport Department which will track down the owners.

"We don’t issue a summons based on the photograph. It is up to the RTD to take the next step," added Suret.

Currently, the website displays 1,454 pictures of offenders and offences. The website was launched in July 2005.

Meanwhile, RTD enforcement director Salim Parlan said yesterday the department would put up bases at accident-prone areas to force motorists to slow down at dangerous stretches.

Called Ops Black Spot, it is being carried out simultaneously with Ops Sikap XII (which started yesterday and ends on Feb 25). Ops Sikap was launched yesterday by federal traffic police chief Senior Assistant Commissioner II Datuk Nooryah Md Anvar at the Jalan Duta bus station.

Twelve policemen will be riding in express buses to prevent the drivers from speeding or driving recklessly.

Nooryah warned that anyone who flouted traffic rules would be fined RM300 on the spot.

The article then gives some views from the general public, mostly positive though some question the method of rewarding the photo's with a maximum of 150 RM, while the offender get's a fine of 300 RM! And there seem to be some issues with dates: could an entrant send in older photo's? Well, despite the article mentioning that it is already in operation, until now no prizes unfortunately. Here's an entry from earlier this year:

'Four school boys without helmets and they're late for school, along trunk/federal road between Kampar and Gopeng'.

Reporting your neighbour to ...

For those of you not familiar with the day-to-day ongoings in Phnom Penh, be informed: the English speaking expatriate community try to stay in touch with all ongoings by purchasing a 'not even so bad' newspaper called the Cambodia Daily, published six times per week. The sixth time is a weekend edition with little or hardly any local content. Through some kind of arrangement the Daily can access foreign press and freely replicates articles of little relevance, especially in the weekend.
Last weekend (January 20-21, 2007) an article was published called 'Snoop next door', originally from the Wall Street Journal. The full article however was not published (as available on internet), but a shorter version. The main theme of the article concerns how society is trying to wrest control over the individual via internet sites which frame and blame the deviants. The original article delves much more in the total society thing, whereas the article published here in Cambodia has a more 'traffic misdemeanors' side. It also refers to some links such as:

• platewire.com

This site is very US based. It gives an overview of number plates and with a click you can view a report, but no photo's. Example:

'Travelling West Bound on Bearse Ave going towards Dale Mabry in Tampa, Fl about 3pm. The driver of this 1998 or 1999 Mitsubishi Galant was a white male, age 50-55, dark hair, sunglasses, light color shirt. He wasn't speeding or weaving or doing any of the things most people write about here. He was just DRINKING A BEER!!! Yes MORON!! I called 911 and I hope the Hillsborough County Sheriffs through your old ass in JAIL!! CAN YOU BE ANY MORE STUPID? HOW ABOUT TRYING TO DRIVE BACKWARDS. THAT MIGHT IMPROVE YOUR JUDGEMENT A LITTLE'!!

• aboveaveragedriver.com

Though aboveaverage seems to concentrate on the positive, it is mostly about poor drivers. It has a great statistical page: in 5 years on the net, 16.609 incidents were reported, 95% of them were 'bad guys'. What's even more revealing is that over 10.000 incidents were reported by just 2 persons, meaning they reported three incidents per day for five years! There also seems to be some biasness in the car make: Toyota got reported most.

• irate-driver.com

Irate drivers is a site to report poor US drivers. No photo's, just:

'Motorcycle cop was driving 40 m.p.h. over the speed limit (approximately) 94 mph without his headlight turned on. I saw his bike parked at the weigh station a few miles up. So, he certainly WAS NOT on a call. Why is it that these cops are allowed to break the law everyday and NOT get tickets yet are able to give tickets to citizens. Makes me sick. He was going too fast for me to see his plate or to get a photograph'.

• baddriving.com

A UK based site. BMW gets the most incidents reported (does this reveal a sort of social tension, non-existent on the other side of the Atlantic?). They also mention 'the most easily annoyed member': he, who reports the most. They have photo and non-photo reports:

'As you can see from the photograph, the idiot decides not only to park on a bend, but sticks 90% of the car onto the path too. Not only would this be difficult to get past in a wheelchair or with a pushchair, but its even difficult for a pedestrian to get past. Also, whichever house the car was at, both houses near to where it was parked had empty drives, so it s not as though there was no place else to park'!

You can also sort reports by type of incidents ('Mobile phone pratt' or 'MLH: Middle Land Hog'). Oddly enough it also links through to 'speedcam' so you know how not to get a ticket. And to Canadian(!) accident lawyers.

• mybikelane.com

A not so very special exclusive US site. Entries are as such:

'This SUV was left driverless parked in the bike lane. They were using it as a loading area for the hotel'.

• caughtya.org

Though US based it reports also from other countries (none so far from Cambodia).An entry (with photo) from Singapore:

'A Ferrari with a brand new number plate in a disability parking space. Now, I've seen it all. What, other lots are not good enough? Anyway, justice was served: a Parking Attendant issued a parking offence notice. Perhaps the number plate on the car should have given the owner an inkling of the state of his luck'.

The reporters are dedicated. One even reports a pile of dirt (in California) on a parking space for the lesser accessible individuals:

'This isn't so much an infraction as a dumping. The space where you see that big pile of dirt is an accessible parking bay. Does that pile of dirt have a permit? I don't see one'.

DHL van's also parked in the same reserved spaces (from Auckland, NZ) as was a 'yellow construction truck' on university terrain in Palmerston North, NZ.

• youparklikeanasshole.com

Their motto:

'Sick of a car taking up two spaces on the street? How about a car too close to yours? What about the car at the mall parked diagonally? Now you can do something about it. Simply download a notice and place it on the car's windshield. The owner of the vehicle will be informed of their asshole status as well as the proper tips to improve their poor parking techniques. It's time to put an end to asshole parking, or at least to make fun of it'.

The site has hardly any reports, just lot's of photo's of cars parked outside of the parking spaces.

One site missed was the monkeymeter. In the US you can rate your own or a neighbouring city for road rage: New Brunswick is leading the rage. A site dedicated to US road rage complete with photo's and city top ten of road ragers.

What all these sites have in common is that they are assisting law enforcers trying to bring a certain politeness in traffic (bringing it back?). In the western more effluent world, the attitudes seem to be getting worse. As law enforcement is very often a case of efficiency, these sites have been created by volunteers intent to get rid of their own rage on the fellow citizens ...

Back in August Crossing Cambodia referred already to the Malaysian state site dedicated to improving traffic politeness. The Malaysian government sees it as their task to (re-) educate their citizens. Since Crossing Cambodia's referral, the site has not been very active.

The photo above was an 'awarded' photo: not so common in Malaysia apparently ...

It reports that the number of fatal accidents dropped in 2006 (reported on the 2nd of January 2007!), but the number of fatalities rose slightly. The response: 'random drugs tests'! The 'Hall of Shame' photo section is dedicated to motorcyclists with no helmets (shock, horror!)

But the relevance of all this for Cambodia: zilch. What warrants setting up a web site in 1 country is a big laugh over here. Rules are non-existent, enforcement ditto. So why complain about drivers parking on the walkways, clients of a Mobile phone network blocking Sihanouk Avenue, cars driving 100 km an hour in busy built up area's, driving on the wrong side of the road, etc., etc., ....?

A radical solution to the Asian anarchy (is it limited to Asia?) is presented by Guangzhou, China: banning all motorcycles from the city. Logic: driving a motorbike, you need a helmet, means you are invisible, means you are a criminal. No motorcycles, no criminals. It's true!