Crossing Cambodia

Saturday, February 02, 2008

Chasing Cars, Cambodian Style, February 2 2008

  • Not much on internet the last week, however yesterday's (Feb.1, 2008) Cambodian Daily had a couple of traffic related articles. The big news is that highway 32, the road connecting Bokor Mountain (to be, but currently in ruins) Resort, is off-limits while it is being reconstructed (and privatized (?) in the process). Sokha Hotel Group
    'estimates it will take around 2,5 years to complete'.
    Reportedly trekking up the mountain is becoming all the rage.
  • 'Traffic Injuries deaths up 45% in November'.
    A yell from again yesterday's Cambodian Daily. However the article then points to the fact that the 45% rise, is in comparison to October, the year to year rise was 18%, which seems very much in line with the growth in traffic overall. The article also reports
    'that the number of motorbike drivers reporting that they wear safety helmets increased from 3% to 7% from October to November'.
    A not so trueful statement, as it concerns victims of accidents. In general a look on today's roads (in Phnom Penh) would reveal that this percentage is 25-40%; it implies that helmet wearers are also safer drivers.
  • Only if you are important, does an accident make the newspaper. An executive's car overtaking while a car is coming from the other side ...
  • China will invest a packet (55 million $US) in a road to Ratanakiri; no strings attached?
  • And now for something completly different:
    'Motor taxi driver injures a robber. ... The robber used a cleaver to rob the motor taxi driver. They scuffled each other. Meanwhile, the motorbike owner took the cleaver from the robber and attacked him back, police said. The victim known as Trei Sopheak, 35, got severe injured seven times in his neck, head and stomach. While both were fighting, police intervened on time and sent them to the hospital.'
  • Motorcycle touring Cambodia? 'Don't look back in Angkor'. A pity the Chinese and private companies will ruin the future for these tourists. Which kind? The kind that like this:
    'The two boys and their bikes are totally covered in mud and I suspect, as I try to kick-start my Honda XR250, that I will be soon, given the road ahead is a barely passable series of potholed broken tracks'.
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