Chasing Cars, November 9 2009

• From Phnom Penh's Post Police Blotter (26 Oct. 2009):

  'A university student was arrested in Phnom Penh on Saturday after throwing his helmet at a police officer during a traffic stop. The accused was stopped for not wearing a helmet while driving his motorbike near Royal University of Phnom Penh. He then threw his helmet, which was hung on the handle of his motorbike, at the police officer. The man’s father explained to police that his son suffers from a mental illness as a result of a traffic accident'.

  Guy is mental for not wearing a helmet and having an accident. What does he do, continues his previous lifestyle. Symptomatic for Cambodia's (lack of) education?

• And a day later the Police Blotter (27 Oct. 2009) reports: '

  A woman who fled from traffic police on Saturday fell off her motorbike on Russian Boulevard in the Sen Sok district of Phnom Penh. The fall rendered the woman unconscious, said witnesses, who added that the bike was equipped with a licence plate and side mirrors, but that the woman had been driving without a helmet. Bystanders complained that police had caused the accident by chasing the woman, who was subsequently brought to an area hospital for treatment'.

  It's quite a common occurrence, police being more vigilant. Over the past weekend I was in Sihanoukville and along the way were a few surprise police check points one which had just then resulted in a minor accident.

• Old story, woman has an accident and goes beserk. She received instant justice: 1,5 year. Then PM wades in and finds sentence too lenient and presto, authorities are now pushing for a harsher sentence. so much for independence of justice. The new charges: trepassing [you never know how long you can go in the lock up for that, in Cambodia] and intent to kill, despite the article claiming

  'she fired a gun into the air'.

  Aiming at who?

• Another ongoing story with so many twists and turns it's hard to understand what's it about. Well, umm it's about dominance of Cambodia's internal skies with two companies vying and despite both failing to adhere to Cambodia's aviation standards which in itself is also lacking competency. Tripadvisor has the following:

  'I've flown VN air (company running flag carrier Cambodia Angkor Airways) turbo-prop planes HCMC-Nha Trang-HCMC - all fine except return leg was delayed'.

  So not so fine ...

• More on the ongoing projects of the Cyclo Center.

• Khmer 440 has pointers on moto-dups.

• Story to picture above:

'Volunteers [paid and forced kids] educate an unhappy motorist about road safety laws on Sunday as part of a regular education campaign by the nonprofit organisation aimed at reducing the number of road casualties in the Kingdom'.

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
  

Cambodian weekly II

Elsewhere in issue no. 12, the Cambodian Weekly focuses on the Cambodian cycling team who are participating in a 14-stage race held currently in Vietnam and Cambodia. They are setting their sights high. The secretary general of Cambodian Cycling Federation, Van Than, mentions:

"My biggest wish is not that the team will win [unlikely?], however that would be nice, but that they finish the race on their bikes, not in support vehicle".

Team Cambodia: on yer bikes!

The section business news briefs has the following caption:

Vietnam has road deaths epidemic: WHO

Some report has been studying 'human loss in traffic accidents, which has become national epidemic'. Crossing Cambodia does not precisely know what the WHO understands under an epidemic (more than person dies of bird flu?), but it seems a bit over the top. And as if the human tragedy is not enough, the 'Asian Development Bank estimate that US$885 million is lost from Vietnam's economy every year because of traffic accidents'. That's a lot of money, even to the ADB (who really only care about the money) and let's thank ADB for putting this into numbers. How much did the report cost? Will the ADB now refrain from funding roads? Doctor thinks not, lip service was what was demanded.

Furthermore in the business section of the Cambodia Weekly, the 'table of the week'! Exciting! The Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) has supplied two(!) tables (from their Cambodia Investment Guide Book (can't be that voluminous)) concerning Cambodia's standing, internationally, on road density (paved) which is 0.011 (apples?). Thailand has 8 times more paved roads, Vietnam six times more. this despite the three countries having roughly the same amount of dirt tracks. Relevance to readers?
The second table reports on modes of transport. Without Crossing Cambodia mentioning CDC are off their rockers, how can they claim that 20% of all passengers (are persons) use the railways! Maybe they haven't be let in on the secret, that the railway system is defunct. ADB to the rescue!

Warning: New Year

Phnom Penh

"City Hall would like to urge people, especially teenagers and students to keep a good attitude .... and not to beat or hit pedestrians and motorcycle drivers which could cause traffic accidents and could result in the loss of lives".

Phnom Penh Municipality statement dated April 4. Happy New Year!

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!