Why are the speed limits so low in Vietnam?

I think the reason is vns drivers are not well-educated about responsibility, they always drive carelessly and cause a lot of accidents everyday. Then the gorvement decided to low the speed limits. Btw, the roads in vn are quite small & narrow.

Agreed. Bad roads and even worse drivers. Even with the low speed limits they manage to kill themselves (and others), I can't imagine the carnage that would ensue if the limits were raised by, say, 20km/h.

I never felt a difficulty in driving here 
Some drivers get road rage but still it's okay here.

charmavietnam wrote:

I never felt a difficulty in driving here 
Some drivers get road rage but still it's okay here.

Ah - road rage - in Vancouver if you make a mistake the other driver(s) will be very angry and if they are Sikh they sometimes will possibly attack you physically.

This is something Vietnamese can be very proud of; they are very forgiving of others' stupidity on the road. Thank goodness they are so tolerant especially when a smug Westerner (me) first hits the Saigon roads. We think we know everything about driving but the everyday driver survives the daily chaos far better than a newbie Westerner. The greatest compliment I ever received from somebody was, "You drive like a Vietnamese."  Yes ,there is a lot of insanity on the roads different than the insanity of the orderly West but like the language it has to be put in context.

charmavietnam wrote:

I never felt a difficulty in driving here 
Some drivers get road rage but still it's okay here.

I thought it was a requirement that you must have road rage here.

Yeah, and hundreds of ppl die every month due to traffic accidents in VN

hoanghai9x wrote:

Yeah, and hundreds of ppl die every month due to traffic accidents in VN

Wait until they actually start counting the wounded that don't die at the scene of an accident, but die of their injuries later, you could probably almost double the road toll.   
  I don't see a lot of road rage up here, ( usually idiots boys that are traveling too fast anyway, they are the ones I see fighting, that's if i can actually see through the audience that gathers within minutes of any accident ).  What amazes me most, is the amount of accidents that occur near the same places, ( and usually a straight stretch of road ), sometimes the blood has hardly dried from the previous accident, ( it has a white painted silhouette, sometimes with the letter M, and there will be m/b silhouettes with V1 , V2, depending on how many vehicles are involved, most I've seen is V4 )

Viet nam is stupid country about tracfic

rubytran7691 wrote:

Viet nam is stupid country about tracfic

Yes - No - Maybe - Please be careful what you write. Sorry rubytran769 - Nói em đùa. Tôi luôn luôn thích đùa với gái xinh đẹp của Việt Nam.

Have you ever come to Philippines, Indonesia or India ?????? think carefully before you speak about vns that includes you, your parents, your friends

Absolutely.

hoanghai9x wrote:

Have you ever come to Philippines, Indonesia or India ?????? think carefully before you speak about vns that includes you, your parents, your friends

Look out everybody, we might have upset the VN ' Mafia '.

bluenz wrote:

hoanghai9x wrote:

Have you ever come to Philippines, Indonesia or India ?????? think carefully before you speak about vns that includes you, your parents, your friends

Look out everybody, we might have upset the VN ' Mafia '.

Nut jobs are everywhere!

You want to witness real carnage? Live outside of a major university in the states like my daughter. She has learned to become a defensive driver at hers. 

I do believe wrote:

bluenz wrote:

hoanghai9x wrote:

Have you ever come to Philippines, Indonesia or India ?????? think carefully before you speak about vns that includes you, your parents, your friends

Look out everybody, we might have upset the VN ' Mafia '.

Nut jobs are everywhere!

And i saw that happens in Greece, also .

hoanghai9x wrote:

I do believe wrote:

bluenz wrote:

Look out everybody, we might have upset the VN ' Mafia '.

Nut jobs are everywhere!

And i saw that happens in Greece, also .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of … _privation

I do believe wrote:

I already know some answers to my question but would be interested to hear others' views and experiences with the rules here and police. When I first came to Vietnam I was amused that the biggest bikes commonly available were 125 or 135; nowadays I'm quite happy with my PCX 135, I am an old, big belly guy and my Honda can accelerate fast enough to dump my passenger. In Canada I drive at 100kmh+ but here I'm happy at 60 on the highway even though I get an occasional ticket. Here we have to contend with drivers who don't signal, ride at night with no lights and many other hazards peculiar to Vietnam. One thing I like, unlike in Canada and the US is car drivers are aware of motorbikes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of … _privation by ssuprnova should be required reading by all posters. On the thread regarding Fast food joints ruining HCMC - there were a couple of commenters who were unaware of the fallacy of privation.

I've been in Vietnam for 5 years, a biker all my life in the UK and I'm in my element on 2 wheels. I was frustrated at first about the speed limits but I see the sense in them after travelling around the country a bit.The roads in much of the country have poor surfaces and can be dangerous, so it makes sense that the speed limit is low. I went to the UK recently after not having been there for a couple of years and hired a car to get about. Driving on the motorways was genuinely terrifying and made me appreciate the slower pace of things in VN. Being a biker I was used to driving around like a nutter at stupid speeds in Europe, not any more. There's a new express way opened on the way to Vung Tau where you can do 100KPH but bikes aren't allowed on it.

The road from Binh Chanh to My Tho also had a 100klm limit, I think they were talking about lowering it due to so many accidents. Long Man is correct about the road surfaces, they are not good enough for anything greater then 60klm an hour. I wouldnt like to be doing a 100klm an hour an someone just pulls in front of you from a side street, which happens all the time.

ssuprnova wrote:

Agreed. Bad roads and even worse drivers. Even with the low speed limits they manage to kill themselves (and others), I can't imagine the carnage that would ensue if the limits were raised by, say, 20km/h.

I'm very curious to see a Vietnamese autobahn.

It will be interesting to see how long the Long Thanh bypass holds up before it starts having problems. Why would you build a road that doesnt take bikes, something like 90% of traffic here are motorbikes.

colinoscapee wrote:

It will be interesting to see how long the Long Thanh bypass holds up before it starts having problems. Why would you build a road that doesnt take bikes, something like 90% of traffic here are motorbikes.

Motorbikes don't pay tolls.

The Ah 17 has tolls and motorbikes are on it, the QL 13 has a toll and there are motorbikes on it and so do many other roads. So not paying a toll doesnt seem to justify that.

The lower speed limits are to help everyone out. All the different speed limits make it very easy to understand 

Simply put, the bigger, heavier and more potentually more dangerous a vehicle is, the higher it's legal speed limit.

Vietnamese road laws make perfect sense to anyone with on open mind about such matters - the rest of the world needs to learn a thing or two. 

Examples -  scooters and motorbikes have a lower speed limit than cars and are easier for car driver's to hit.
Car's speed limits are lower than buses so the buses and trucks can hit cars easier.
Buses and trucks, the much larger trucks, in theory, have the same speed limit.
But the average truck driver's are much worse drivers than a bus driver, therefore they go at whatever speed they like. Ensuring that a bus can't get away from a large truck.

It's all very easy to work out really.   

I'm still working on my Vietnamese logic and found riding my motorbike along the footpath works quite well whenever the streets are really jammed packed.
Still practicing riding up one way streets in the wrong direction and on the wrong (left) side of the road against oncoming traffic.
Thinking of disabling all the lights on my bike as well, or locking one of my turn indicators on permanently so I'll blend in a lot more with the average VN bike rider.
Have a long way to go, the average Vietnamese city motorbike rider has been doing this a lot longer than myself.
BUT, I'm making progress ! 

More and more very nice men and women in brown uniforms keep waving me over to talk, very politely of course. Lovely people indeed. Show them my residence card, house card, driver's license, bike owners papers and insurance papers - that seems to put everyone at ease. Usually they point up and down the roads then give me all these lovely pieces of paper to take away with me when they wave me off again.
No idea what's written on theses pieces of paper, they all look the same, have to learn to read Vietnamese one day I guess. 
Most of them seem very happy when I 'body language' indicate how hot it is and give them several hundred VND each, indicating that they really should get something to drink.   

The 'traffic lights' are great fun as well !   A lot even have colored numbers that count downwards in both red and green numbers - no-one takes any notice of them either, but others on the roads seem to get very upset if you stop to look at these lights.

Every day riding around in Sai Gon is a wonderful new adventure - if it wasn't for all these idiot tourists who think they know how to ride a motorbike !
They keep getting in the way by doing stupid things like stopping when it's quite obvious that with just a little bit of effort, they could fit at least the front wheel of their bike between the two bikes just in front of them. 

Hahaha,very true. i wonder if they have heard about trying to fit a square peg in a round hole,Im sure they would give it a try as they try and get bikes through a 6 inch gap.

colinoscapee wrote:

It will be interesting to see how long the Long Thanh bypass holds up before it starts having problems. Why would you build a road that doesnt take bikes, something like 90% of traffic here are motorbikes.

Because Vietnam will never progress as a country into the 20th Century (yes, the rest of the developed world is in the 21st Century) until they build more restricted-access highways. It's the same reason bicycles and mopeds aren't allowed on motorways in other countries. Face it - 95% of the motorbikes in Vietnam are nothing more than mopeds - they could not possibly run at sustained speeds of 100kph for extended periods such as is required on modern motorways. Allowing Vietnamese motorbikes on the Long Thanh expressway is a recipe for death and disaster, and would do nothing but clog the road, thereby lowering the speed of the cars, trucks and buses that use it.

Yes I hear what your saying, so why is it that the Long An bypass they discussed dropping the speed limit as there were too many accidents.Its a vehicle only road, no motorbikes.

colinoscapee wrote:

Yes I hear what your saying, so why is it that the Long An bypass they discussed dropping the speed limit as there were too many accidents.Its a vehicle only road, no motorbikes.

If that's true, it's because the average Vietnamese auto/truck motorist doesn't know how to drive safely at 100+kph. My driver is as good as I've ever had (I've had at least 6 or 7 - I lost count) and he looked like he was challenged when we drove on the LT.  Hell, when you're used to driving around in the Districts of HCM at 20-30kph tops, you're gonna be challenged to drive at 100+.  Furthermore, many of the cars and trucks here aren't maintained properly, and probably aren't safe to drive at higher speeds. As I said earlier, It's going to take some time for VN to catch up with the developed world with regard to proper transportation.

At last, someone who's actually got a handle on it. The only thing you forgot was, to be a true Vietnamese biker you have to carry unfeasibly large loads or something really dangerous like a huge gas canister or shop window sized pains of glass. Then there's the Viet family motorcycle display teams with up to 10 people on a C50 with a small child in a baby seat on the top.

Agree 100%, its a serious problem. The other major problem is the Im bigger then you, so get out of my way.

LOL  Compare to all Vietnamse....

( WE ARE FAT Colinoscapee )

AND THEY WILL LET YOU KNOW THAT>> FIRST TIME YOU MEET>>>HEY YOU FAT>>>LOOSE WEIGHT>>>> LOL

Actually I was referring to vehicle size, not body size.

You should never drive and faster than you can brake at the limits of vision.  I've seen potholes even in recently-built roads that could swallow a motorcycle whole, and anyone going much over 40 could go right into them.  And once in a while there is indeed a bike and a corpse or three down there.

No signs.

Flip465 - the king of sarcasm. I think I'll give his text to some of my students and see what they think about the tome.

Will they understand sarcasm,so whats the point.

colinoscapee wrote:

Will they understand sarcasm,so whats the point.

They must learn about sarcasm if they want to be fluent Englsih speakers.

Well they must be fairly advanced students.