The road rules of Vietnam

The first thing you notice when you come to Vietnam is the traffic. While riding in the airport minibus to the Old Quarter of Hanoi Brandi and I both stared wide eyed at the intense chaotic traffic and the way that motos, cyclos, cars, buses and pedestrians somehow manage to weave in and out amongst each other without creating one huge accident. I think we both thought to ourselves, "How are we going to manage to navigate through this?" As with everyone who comes here, we learned the road rules quite quickly. There are basically three sets of rules. First there's the rules for the pedestrians. We learned these really quickly. You have to if you want to reach your next destination in one piece.

RULE 1

Never ever, EVER, cross the road without looking first to see how many motos you have to dodge to get to the other side.

RULE 2

If you only see motos and cyclos, you are good to go, just make eye contact with them and walk at a steady pace. Don't panic and don't run, but be aware that they will not stop for you, only somewhat swerve to avoid you.

RULE 3

If you see a car, don't cross. Wait until you see only motos. They're much safer for pedestrians.

RULE 4

If you see a bus, hear a bus or even suspect one might be coming down the street you are walking on anytime soon, get off the road, out of the way and preferably on the sidewalk ( if you can get past all the parked motos) as soon as possible.

RULE 5

If by some bizzare chance you do find a crosswalk and the little green man happens to appear, remember you are in Vietnam and if you don't have at least two wheels under your body while you are on ashphalt you are vulnerable and virtually invisible. Crosswalks mean nothing here.




Now... if you are riding on the back of a moto you have another set of rules. They're pretty simple.

RULE 1

Keep your legs and arms as close to the driver as possible so you don't hit any of the children, bicycles or motos you are driving past.

RULE 2

Hang on for dear life because if you fall off you have no helmet.

RULE 3

Constantly pray that your moto driver has the agilty and experience to avoid the hundreds of vehicles and pedestrians that are sharing the road with you.

RULE 4

Sit back and try to relax; you only live once so it might as well be exciting.

The last set of rules are for the drivers, but since no one really follows them all that closely, I'll call them guidelines. Since Brandi and I want to see you all sometime in the near future we haven't even thought of driving a motorbike out here so what I write is purely from my observation of other drivers and not from my own personal experience.

Guideline 1

If you see anyone near you, honk your horn to let them know you are coming. In Canada we lay on the horn if we are angry, but that's not the case here. Honking is a polite little way of saying, "Hey, I'm here. Don't hit me!" or, "Hey I'm here, get out of my way. If a bus is honking the message should be translated like this; "I'm a heck of a lot bigger than you so get out of my way now or I will flatten you."

Guideline 2

Drive relatively slow so you can avoid others to the best of your ability. If you are a slow vehicle stya close to the shoulder. If a bigger vehicle honks at you move as close to the shoulder as quickly as possible, but not too quickly or abruptly because you may cause an accident.

Guideline 3

This is the most important; never get angry. I have yet to see one Vietamese with a look of annoyance on their face toward their fellow driver. There is no road rage here. I think they know that if they were to get angry, the system, if that's what you could call it, would collapse. Remain calm and patient and you should somehow manage to arrive at your destination within a reasonable amount of time.

So that's it. Those are my observations from watching the traffic in Vietnam. I know it all sounds scary but really it's one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.