Blood on the Highway

We've all been in bad traffic. And anyone who has been to poor foreign countries has been in ludicrously bad traffic. I hereby submit, however, that traffic in Vietnam is the worst in the world. Not because it's jammed up--even Honolulu gets more gridlocked. No, Hanoi wins as the worst traffic because every time you leave the sidewalk, either by foot, motorbike, car, or bus, your mortality rate drops by 20 years.

This fact was nailed home yesterday afternoon on my white-knuckled ride home from work aboard my putt-putt 125cc Honda Wave. I, along with enough people to fill a college gymnasium, was stopped at a red light. That in itself is a major improvement. When I first came to Vietnam eight years ago there weren't any traffic lights in the entire city. Intersections were slaughter houses. Additionally, as of last year, Vietnamese law requires everyone to wear helmets, and most major roads now feature these novel inventions called medians--thus keeping giant water buffalos from charging across the street during rush hour. So things have improved. But the overall degree of improvement is about the same as a 500-lb man on his first day of a diet.

Anyway, we're all stopped and there's only 20 seconds to go before our light goes green (they have count downs on their lights like some kind of execution march). But this jackass kid next to me is honking his horn. We're like five rows back, so I don't know what kind of Red Sea-moment he was expecting. He starts cussing, then lifts his bike up onto the sidewalk, fires his engine straight forward past us fools still stuck on the street, and plunges off the sidewalk into the intersection. What a clever chap. Except that, for some reason, 20 feet into the intersection he gets crushed by the grill of an SUV going about 25. Luckily his body launched to the left instead of under the SUV like his demolished bike. After thud number three, his body came to rest with his arm folded under his back like a leather belt. He was unconcious or dead, because there was no screaming.

Now this was all quite shocking. But I was actually more shocked by everyone's reaction. More than half the people didn't even turn their head in the direction of the crash. The SUV's driver didn't rush out of his car to inspect whether he had just ended a life. He casually put his car into neutral, then sat inside the airconditioned cab and made a call (hopefully to Vietnam-911). When the light went green a few seconds later, everyone except me and a few others fired their bikes forward and, like ants around spit, sped past the SUV and unconcious teen. The whole accident drew about as much concern as a spilled glass of soda in a crowded restaurant.

I pulled up on the sidewalk and ran over to the kid. When I asked the tiny crowd that had assembled if he was OK, they were more interested in the fact that I spoke Vietnamese than the kid's life. Finally, I made it to him. I had visions of heroically putting that first aid training to use. But alas, the dude was already sitting up with his mangled arm scooped up in his other arm. His eyes were glazed, but he seemed OK. The SUV driver came over and callously reminded the kid in an expletive-laced explosion that the light was red. No interest in the kid's condition. Then he tells everyone that the cops are coming...not an ambulance, but the police. He commands the kid not to move until they get here, then they'll decide whether to call an ambulance.

I stayed a while longer, but it became clear that I was more of a distraction than help. I went back to my bike, said about twelve prayers, then sped off for home, slowing down at each light and looking both ways for similar jackasses who fail to grasp the concept that when your light is red, the intesection will probably have fast moving objects in the way.

Here's a video shot by Wendi of traffic during a weeknight in Hanoi. Multiply this by 10 for weekend nights and rush hour.



And here's a quickie of Wendi crossing the street.