Chasing Cars, September 23, 2008

With Pchum Ben festivities nearing, both the police checks and bag snatching have increased, is this not a contradiction?

Despite the outbreak of police checks, moto's with mirrors are still increasing but not in majority. The same applies for helmet wearing drivers, 40-50% now have taken to wearing helmets. Still if you have witnessed the effort the traffic police have dedicated to pulling moto's up, the figure might represent a disappointment, possibly something is going wrong with the enforcement.

Witness Crossing Cambodia did of a bag snatching incident. Two guys pull up next to 2 girls, chat, chat, laugh, laugh, lung, grab and tear off down a side street. Be careful out there!

• The government is now pressuring oil companies to get their prices down. All the posturing resulted in the prices at the pump drop by a whopping 0,02 $US! This article in the Phnom Penh Post sums up all the claims: prices have failed to go down.
  But the government responds:

  'International crude oil prices soared more than 84 percent by June 2008, while the price of petrol in Cambodia only rose about 40 percent, the [Finance] minister said, crediting the difference to the government's "silent subsidy" of petrol'.

  Unfortunately the 'silent subsidy' claims that the government probably stopped increasing it's import revenue on petrol, changing from a percentage tariff to a fixed amount. So no subsidy, just less income. Then again why should the government get more by fleecing the consumer?
  

• Bangkok, this weekend, saw the 'Car Free Day'. And that does not mean that cars were exempt from paying toll on the elevated highways! No, it means grab a bike or take the bus. Funny thing is it is government endorsed:

  'In Thailand, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, Bicycle for Health Society, the Thai Health Promotion Foundation and Green Peace Southeast Asia will join 14 of the world's largest cities in the car-free day'.

  The closest Cambo authorities get to even mentioning non-motorized transport is when they slag off all too poor for having no wheels. The gov of PP mentioned:

  'Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema said Sunday that the citywide pavement narrowing project will help make more room for cars, and should not be problematic as few people use the capital’s sidewalks anyway.
  “I want to reduce all the sidewalks to be smaller and smaller because our people use cars and motorbikes. We do not like to walk” Kep Chuktema said'.

• Car Free Day was 'celebrated' in Vietnam as well.
  

• In Vietiane they have a novelty:

  'The Vientiane Urban Development and Administration Authority is in the process of installing 50 road name signs around Vientiane ...'

  but

  'Forty road signs have already been installed, but the authority lacks sufficient funds to continue with the project and is waiting for further support from the International Association of French Mayors.

  Thank god for the French.

• Why Cambo airlines will never get anywhere: more than a year after an air crash involving South Koreans the relatives have actually have to sue the Cambodian airline to get some kind of compensation. Let's hope they're not holding their breath.
  What are you in for?

  'South Korean investigators have concluded that the accident was caused by pilot error, problems with the airport's automated radar terminal system and defects in the plane'.

• A very strange article in the Sydney Morning:

  'Malaysia's worst in the world taxis tarnish image
  In a survey by the local magazine The Expat, some 200 foreigners from 30 countries rated Malaysia the worst among 23 countries in terms of taxi quality, courtesy, availability and expertise'.

  Well quite correct to take those taxi drivers to the cleaners, my opinion is similar: they are not at all what Malaysia makes them to be. Then again, Malaysia = truly Asia, so not such a big surprise. Cambodia counts itself lucky they weren't part of the survey on the grounds of having no taxi's to speak of. Could Cambodia not have entered moto's instead., they are after all our local 'taxis'? See who then would end at the bottom of the heap. Our moto drivers are no where near a KL taxi driver ...

• Another bad Poipet experience:

  'We also got shepherd into a mafia taxi with another couple, we all pay 15 usd each. The mafia man taking charge of getting us into a taxi was getting angry with us because we first lied about having our visa already when he approached us at immigration on the Thai side, then we didn't go straight to his taxi and wanted to look around. He kept saying we could trust him, he was with the Tourist Police and we told him we didn't trust them either.
  We couldn't find any other option so took his anyway'.

• Back to the bag snatchers. There are also amateurs entering this profession:

  'BYSTANDERS BASH BAG SNATCHER
  Chea Dara, 16, was severely beaten by a crowd of bystanders after he pulled Kong Darany, 28, off her motorbike in an unsuccessful bag snatching attempt on the corner of street 109 and Russian Boulevard in Prampi Makara district of Phnom Penh at 11:30am Monday. The police said that Chea Dara, who was pulled off his motorbike by the bystanders, "was severely beaten by the people until he lost consciousness". He is currently in police custody awaiting trial'.

• More things increasing:

  'Some 1,777 traffic accident casualties were reported by hospitals, health centres, private clinics and traffic police departments in 24 provinces for June, an increase of 20 percent over May, according to the Cambodian Road Traffic Accident and Victim Information System'.

Biking?

New federal roads to have two bike lanes.

That's a title of a press report from Malaysia (23 February 2007). Are bicycles being used that often in Malaysia? Apparently not, it refers to motorcycles! Here, for what it's worth:

KUALA LUMPUR. New federal roads will be required to have motorcycle lanes on both sides, in an effort to reduce road accidents, said Works Minister Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu. However, new motorcycle lanes would not be built in the city simply because there was no space or reserve land available, he said.
"There are not many motorcycle lanes in Kuala Lumpur. We want to build them but there is no space or reserve land to do so.
"For federal roads, the Government has directed us to plan for special motorcycle lanes.
"Hundreds of people die every year from road accidents. We have to take this into account.
"For new federal roads, there must be an allocated motorcycle lane on the left and right side of the road, unlike before where it is only available at the side of the road," he told reporters after officially launching the new exchange near the Segambut-Jalan Kuching roundabout.
Samy Vellu said he had asked the Works Department to inform him of the amount needed to build the motorcycle lanes.
New lanes, he said, would only be built on current federal roads if allocation or land was available.

Hall of shame no more?

Malaysian government's creativity which resulted in their 'Hall of Shame' has come to an end apparently. Reasons cited are blatant abuses such as providing false information and reproduction of photos. The site now devotes itself to parking offenders and has the information that

'If you are driving or in control of a motorized vehicle, motorcycle or bicycle, do not attempt to capture any photos or videos. It is an offence to do so'.

So that's a complete turn around.

It is also unclear what has happened to the Chinese New Year Campaign, reported just over two weeks ago on Crossing Cambodia. The Malaysian authorities do claim that the number of deaths dropped

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'.