Chasing Cars, Cambodian Style, Friday the 14th of March

• Not so much this week. Over last weekend there was the motorcross.

• And coming week there is a vintage car rally:

  'The rally is a slow ride between Kuala Lumpur and Hanoi, stopping at the most elegant hotels along the way and costing each participant some 46,000 U.S. dollars.
  
  The cars, driven by a diverse mixture of nationalities, have already wound through Thai and Lao valleys and are currently rattling across Cambodia's scenic plains before entering Vietnam'.

• Safety issues: somewhere in this weeks Cambodia Daily was a reference to the number of causalities in February which showed a rise, which the authorities then blamed on Chinese New Year. But the reality: just a few weeks ago the same authorities were backslapping and congratulating themselves as :

  'According to Cambodia Daily reported that “during the Chinese New Year accidents in 2008 dropped down because of some people understanding and obeying the traffic law"'.

  A dispute? Quickly click to www.roadsafetycambodia.info for official confirmation! But despite a surprising amount of uploads on their website, their statistics are still only of last December.
  More intrigue if you believe the Vietnamese. They report a drop in deaths in Vietnam during Tet due to the compulsory helmet rules.
  

• So what's on road safety wise? An announcement on the Road Safety Week / Khmer New Year Campaign with one of the objectives being:' Extend the responsibility to the road user - think before you start the vehicle'. A photo competition. And a number of training courses. And in depth report on the UNICEF report concerning child deaths? Nah!

  'Road accidents are the second-biggest killer of children in countries where traffic is typically congested and chaotic and laws are often ignored. The highest number of traffic deaths occur in the teen years. "Road traffic is a major, major issue in countries like Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia," said Hisashi Ogawa, regional adviser for healthy settings and environment at the World Health Organization's Western Pacific office. "It's not just kids on bikes, but also kids on the streets," said Ogawa, who was not involved in the study'.

• With the increasing price of fuel quite a few people will be thinking before starting the vehicle. Odd that it's Xinhua doing the report, nothing in the Cambodian press.

• Khmer 440 have a poll on Cambodia's traffic police: how much should you pay? (ongoing)