Chasing cars, wet season style

One would expect two weeks into the new 'get tough(?)' campaign of Phnom Penh's traffic police that adherence to some of the enforced rules of the traffic law would be rising. Unfortunately it's not the case. Wearing a helmet is still only done by 20-30% of the motorcycle drivers and though side mirror counts are increasing, they hardly reach 10% usage. So a waste of time?

With the cloudy conditions, the traffic police have been able to set up shop at new sites looking to surprise the odd moto. Is this positive news? Hardly, those of us awaiting a new dawn after the elections will have to be satisfied with the same old song.

More traffic news?

• The Cambodian Mirror focuses on the increasing number of deaths in Cambodian traffic:

  'During the first six months of 2008, the total number of traffic accidents was 3,511 which killed 903 people; it increased 17%, compared to the same period of the first six month of 2007'.
  

• Rainy season? KI Media has some pictures:

• Good news for the Vietnamese, petrol smuggling (to Cambodia) is down. This though is bad news for Cambodian drivers who rely on the Vietnamese petrol smuggling for cheap adulterated fuel. With prices at the Cambo pumps dropping, smuggling will also drop.

• How's the traffic in Cambodia? Kalyan's blog:

  'Yes, the traffic is currently getting worse as there are more vehicles on the streets and some do not respect the traffic law at all'.

• Matthew describes taking a 'van' from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh:

  'About that point we reached my personal best of being crammed into the taxi, counting 24 people in the van, each contorted to accommodate everyone kind of like a big jig saw
  ...
  On the way up we see two traffic accidents and one body lying on the road
  ....
  We continue past the airport through the flooded roads, right when a truck overtakes us through the deepest part of the water. The boot of the van is tied down but ajar because it is overloaded. A tsunami of brown, muddy and smelly water is swept up by the truck , through the boot and soaks everyone in the back rows

• In the rainy season bridges are a luxury. Those traveling from Battambang to Pailin will find out why. Khmernews.com:

  'A cement containing truck destroyed a bridge'.

  Highway 57 is out for the moment, wait till it dries up.

• A report connected to the above story? '

  'When roads become rivers. Newly constructed roads on the outskirts of Phnom Penh are deteriorating rapidly, according to local residents, who say hasty repair work and a lack of proper drainage are condemning them to a life of chronic wet-season flooding'.

• More wet season problems, this time in Siem Reap:

  ' "The plane landed in heavy weather," the [Jetstar Asia] spokesman said. "The aircraft drifted to the edge of the runway" '.
  

• Another traffic victim:

  'Pok Chantola, 55, a car salesman in Meanchey district, was crushed to death by a Lexus 470 while waiting for his friend in front of a beer garden in the Chamkarmon district of Phnom Penh at 10:30pm on Saturday. The driver of the Lexus, Hong Piseth, 38, was drunk at the time of the accident. He was detained by police at the scene but was released a day later after he paid $13,300 reparation to the victim's family'.

  Do note the difference in payment, to the incident in last weeks Chasing Cars edition, where the well-connected driver paid only $4,000. Maybe his victim was poorer...
  Meanwhile, the Phnom Post police blotter continues:

  'A drunken driver of a CRV car, and his three intoxicated passengers, crashed into the parking lot of Calmette hospital in Phnom Penh on Tuesday. No one was injured in the accident but 12 motorcycles were damaged by the out-of-control car. Witnesses said that the CRV car did not have a number plate and ended up stuck on the hospital wall. Police have arrested the driver, Khan Kosal, 30. The car and the damaged motorcycles are being kept at the Municipal Traffic Police office'.

  So, if I'm right: you damage motorcycles, you go to jail, you kill someone, you do not go to jail!

• Finally an unlinked mention. Cambodia's Pocket Guides latest Phnom Penh Out&About issue focuses on accidents:

  'Motorbike accidents are so common in Cambodia, it's taking on the mantle of a national sport.Hit-and-run seems to be the most popular, which typically involve a monstrous SUV barreling through an intersection'.

  The article then gives the classic accident scenario and the lack of insurance which naturally would help Cambodia hugely. It ends with this prophetic words:

  'As Cambodia's traffic laws develop and the capacity to implement them grows, more and more drivers will be required to attend driving school,obtain proper drivers' licenses, be covered with a minimum of third party liability and, most importantly, follow the law. So remember the next time you're pulled over for not wearing a helmet and told to pay that dollar, it's ultimately for your own good'.

  Seeing is believing
  

Chasing Cars, June 2, 2008

• How safe is traffic in Cambodia? Well, if even UFO's are having accidents over or near Cambodia, then we can clearly say that the traffic situation in Cambodia is not so safe after all.

  'A UFO has exploded in mid-air over a southern Vietnamese island, according to reports.
  Villagers say they heard a loud blast yesterday and later found shards of metal near the island's coastline.
  The sensational revelations come one day after neighbouring Cambodia's air force retracted a report of a mysterious plane crash.
  The Vietnam News Agency said residents of Phu Quoc island, six miles off the coast of the Cambodian province of Kampot, found shards of grey metal, including one 1.5 metres long'.

  Pictures of shards obtained in Cambodia are here. So it was a UFO, but everybody has been told to hush up. From the Vietnamese press:

  'Nguyen Thanh Banh, Kien Giang police deputy chief, told Thanh Nien anyone found guilty of spreading rumors from the incident that would negatively affect security on the island would be dealt with according to law'.

  That's good to know, that the law will be upheld. What does the Vietnamese law say about spreading rumours? Do they actually have a law on spreading rumours? Do they have legislation on UFO's? Does the traffic law in Cambodia have anything to say on UFO's?
  

• The train was back in the news last week. It derailed surprisingly:

  'The reason for the overturn appears to be the decrepit old railroad tracks which could no longer support the weight of the wagons'.

  Possibly the same train also derailed a few days earlier in Battambang. The reason:

  ' "It rains a lot previous day that land under the rail ways went down", he [an official] say'.

• What with fuel wagons being derailed and pilfered (see above), more problems behest the fuel situation in Cambodia:

  'On average, 10,000 –15,000 litres are smuggled into Cambodia through Kien Giang Province every day ... the province’s Department of Industry and Trade has instructed oil enterprises to limit monthly supplies to retailers in border communes to 150,000 litre'.

  Darn! No more cheap petrol for Cambodia!

• How much value are employees to your company? Sufficient enough to give them helmets? Well, Crossing Cambodia would think so. But why would this logical line of thought need to be highlighted:

  'Hence, the hotel [Victoria Angkor Resort and Spa] did something about it – by generously supplying helmets to all staff members. “The staff members were overjoyed as they were given one helmet each for free,” said the beaming general manager.'

• More non-news: current and most probable future Cambodian PM, Hun Sen, wants his high ranking officials to foot the bill themselves for driving:

  'Hun Sen wants to condition the members of the upcoming Cambodian government with a new measure: the end of all service cars (for VIPs)'.

  Q.: will it happen? A.: don't think so ...
  

• Do we have any indication on the situation on the road to Koh Kong? Tales of Asia forum reports:

  'The bridges are now all complete and coaches, a.c. nice seats, toilets, towels and water are now doing the run for 10 $ U.S. It's six hours, with a lunch and loo stop to P.P. so maybe a half hour less to Sihanoukville, no change of bus'.

  Khmer 440 forum adds:

  'A friend of mine said yesterday all bridges are allowing traffic even though two bridges are incomplete'.

  ...

  'Regarding the bridges, I took the bus from KK to Sihanoukville and got there in 4 hours without changing bus, all bridges were fully functional. I just wonder if Asean Hotel in KK overcharged me on the ticket, paid 15$ U.S. '.

  A.: yes, but only by 50%!
  

• The road Siem Reap-border:
  

  'nasty weather made the road very muddy'

• Frizz restaurant has got it's Cambodia Travel guide updated. Why they don't simply put the info on wikitravel is beyond Crossing Cambodia, possibly a potential to plug themselves, though they are a restaurant not a travel agency. From the Dangers and Annoyances section, some sound advice:

  'Definitely the most dangerous aspect of Cambodia: the traffic. This country has a shocking number of traffic casualties, even more so if you consider the still relatively low number of cars.
  In the cities it's not so bad. Although chaotic for the western eye, traffic in cities tends to be slow and when accidents occur it's usually limited to material damage.
  You will see a quite different situation on the roads between towns: speeding cars and old trucks and minivans dangerously overloaded with people and goods. ....
  Many visitors are tempted to hire a moto or even an off-road bike. You should be an experienced driver if you want to ride around Cambodia. Give yourself time to get adjusted to the traffic 'rules' and always wear a helmet!'

• Then some quirky khmernews:

  'Bus Transports Illegally Luxurious Timber
  A bus, which contained a lot of cubic meters of luxurious log, was stopped by Kampongcham province police. The timber was illegally transported to Vietnam'.

Chasing Cars, 6 November 2007

Missed Crossing Cambodia? Nah? Hmm, wondering wants happening to the site? Keep wondering, Crossing Cambodia has some long term plans ....

In the meantime, CC just came back from a week holidays. Cambodia was world news! For what? The local supremo's adopted daughter officially switches sexual preference, so as a good surrogate father you cut them from your will. Don't worry, even Dick Cheney (the Darth Vader?) has these kinds of problems.

Furthermore the North Korea PM paid his Cambodian cronies a visit, to bolster economic and cultural ties.

And finally the traffic news: DPA picked upon a recent trend to use animal noises as horns. Crossing Cambodia has not witnessed this himself, though once saw a foreigner on a motorcycle using his horn which resembled a policeman blowing his whistle. It didn't help much and anyway it's not allowed anymore (for fear of 're-education' [like the sound of that]). More tidbits:

• Believe the new traffic law means every one can get a traffic license without paying all and sundry? Think again. The Phnom Penh Post apparently uncovers scams costing more than $100 to get a driver's license without sitting any exam.

• See picture, Pol Pot's car is for sale.

• Rainy season means thousands of trucks stuck on national highway 57

• Getting stuck? The Bangkok - Siem Reap blog Updates Report on October 2007, mentions

  'mafia taxi's'.

  Apparently run by the maffia for the public good. One report:

  'The road to SR is still a mess but passable with care'.

  Another lady mentions:

  'Believe me after that 6 1/2 hrs taxi ride I was pretty upset, ...'.

• Less stuck is this expose called Rush hour at Angkor: visiting the temples by push-bike. Conclusion:

  'I'm well and truly spent. One day of this type of exertion is plenty...'.

• Getting unstuck and less exerting: Dancing Roads Dirtbike:

  'Brave yourself against seemingly impassable roads, ...'.
  

• Getting stuck at the Lao-Cambodian border: Sun san's forum entry on Khmer 440 shows you the way north from Phnom Penh, literally on his flickr site.

Then finally a round up of all kind of miscellaneous announcements on infrastructure / government decisions:

• Free skies coming your way?

  'It's open skies as 10 Southeast Asian nations agreed this to week to have free air access between their capital cities by December next year'.

  Pie in the sky.

• Building bridges in times of elections.

• More roads means more Toyota Camry's.

• And what all this can lead to? Vietnam News reports that the city Hue is unable to cope with just the Thai arrivals, what with a new bridge over the Mekong and a beauty of a road to Central North coast of Vietnam. On the 23rd of October more than 6,000 Thai visited Hue, however it only has 'nearly 6,000 rooms'.

National Highway 5-6 Siem Reap - Poipet

National Highway no. 6 from Siem Reap to Sisophon and then from Sisophon on National Highway no. 5 to Poipet, the overland borderpoint to Bangkok, has the reputation to be the worst national highway of Cambodia, an accolade which it has retained since time immortal. A recent article from the UPI's food(?) correspondent, Julia Watson, confirms this:

'The road from Siem Reap in Cambodia to the Poipet border post in Thailand is 93 miles long. The journey takes, on a good weather day, around 6 hours by bus.

To call it a road is to grant it a compliment it isn't due.

Despite massive overseas funding raised to develop an acceptable highway to the border crossing, hard standing is sporadic. The surface is no more than compacted red dirt that after any rainstorm turns quickly into a rutted field. Traffic slaloms from side to side to avoid the potholes. But punctures and ruptured crankshafts are common'.

This seems to contradict Cambodia's own website on this stretch of road, over on Tales of Asia. According to this site the road condition is 'Overall okay' as of April 30, 2007. This despite referring to the Poipet to Sisophon section of 50 kilometers:

'This section is surfaced and varies from okay to quite wretched. A lot of potholes (big enough to park a truck in) were patched up late last year, but the road, particularly near Poipet remains a bone-jarring ride'.

In all they reckon a bus could do the stretch of 155 km in 5-7 hours. This seems to be substantiated by reports from travelers on their web site, though with the recent rains, who knows what could happen?
What they do comment on is numerous scans mostly directed to the unfortunate tourists who can not cough up the cash to fly on the monopoly airline Bangkok Airlines, which seems to repel all competion. Probably the road department are in on the act as well ...

Letter to the editor: Road paving

More asphalt, possibly, street 282

Following this weeks article in the Cambodia Daily, today's (23-11-2006) Cambodia Daily Letter to the Editor section Sao Volak vents his ideas:


a. congestion has made traveling in Phnom Penh harder,

b. road improvement seems related to increasing traffic fatalities (no proof provided),

c. accidents occur due to the construction of concrete dividers.


He then suggests that wider roads will lead to less congestion, but fails to delve on the issue brought forward i.e. relation between road improvement projects and increasing fatalities. In the end the letter is very ineffective, the writer fails to bring good arguments: more road gives only temporary reprieve from congestion, there is more need for public transport / mass transport systems. Possibly the problems are as of now not problematic enough...

Novel ways to 'reduce traffic'

In today's (November 17) Cambodian Daily, an article on the widening of Phnom Penh's main road, the Russian Federation Boulevard. Three meters on each side. Phnom Penh's Municipal Governor Kep Chuktema 'expects the enlargment will reduce 50 % of the traffic jams along this boulevard'. The article then quotes the Governor that 'there were unfunded plans to pave all unpaved streets in Phnom Penh to further reduce traffic'.

Well let's say that last quote was a typing mistake, more asfalt attracts more traffic, streets getting wider results only in a shift in the traffic jams.

Highway robbery?

From the Cambodian Newspapers Kampuchea Thmey and Samleng Yuvachun translated on the KI site:

The local firm Sarla has been accused of conspiring with Takeo provincial authorities to set up a detour to collect illegal tolls on a section of National Road 2 that stretches from the province to the Vietnamese border, newspapers report.

The company reportedly charges 2,500 riel to 10,000 riel (US$0.60 to US$2.40) based on the type of vehicle for use of a 500-meter detour it built in Lorry village, Daun Keo district, reports Kampuchea Thmey. The company has allegedly constructed a two-meter barrier on the section to force drivers onto the detour.

Hundreds of residents, businesspeople and vehicle owners have thumb printed a complaint to Prime Minister Hun Sen over the money extortion, according to the newspaper.

Drivers lament that the detour is not necessary as the government has completed renovation of the road section with a grant from the Japanese government, and that Sarla should have built the detour before the renovation, writes Samleng Yuvachun Khmer.

The newspaper describes the company as doing business like “making a cake without flour.”

The two newspapers fail to report any reactions from provincial or company officials.

Comment: strange things happen, but Crossing Cambodia does not fully comprehend the situation at hand. Is it really that a company blocks a major highway and demands toll...

National highway?

Despite Siem Reap being the major tourist attraction of Cambodia and Thai being one of the most avid visitors the road between Siem Reap and the border, a national highway, continues to be a huge eyesore. Here's a report via KI from Pattaya News.

From Phnom Penh municipality a message of congratulations to themselves for fixing a potholed thoroughfare, street 63.

Updating Crossing Cambodia's readers

Take a look at this picture above. The authorities have deemed it wise to fill the potholes in street 63 but, as it is a busy street, they need to cordon part of the street off. For this thay use a thin strip of tape with a few sticks. The tape is so thin you do not even see it on the photo. Did it help? Not really. Half an hour later this solution was not used as a number of the sticks had been broken. And has the street improved? Wait and see.

In the recent weeks not so may postings from Crossing Cambodia. Why not? Well, generating own content costs time and from the press there is little revealing insights: this week five seems to be the unlucky number, three separate accidents on 3 separate days have resulted in 5 dead in each accident. Everything (speeding, drugs, alcohol, ignorance)/one got the blame. One incident was a cement truck backing onto a national highway which resulted in two speeding vehicles losing control. Another was a nighttime accident when a vehicle without lighting crashes into another vehicle without lighting on an unlit road. Hmmm.

Should Crossing Cambodia keep you posted?

Anyway, in the coming weeks the layout will be improved hopefully.