Tips and advice to thrive in Vietnam

I've driven motorcycles, motorbikes, and automobiles for over 13 years over here...Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Japan and Vietnam...
Vietnamese are well known for their driving habits around the world.
As to their 'bike' driving and can pretty much agree with you in part, but that still does not erase their inability to understand and comply with 'road rules'!  As to their auto driving in car, bus or truck...you could make a TV show on their driving and parking...
I've driven flat-beds down an alley and backwards sometimes as well in the North East...inches, not feet. 
Have a nice one and enjoy the coming summer.  Hopefully another 1,200 to 1,800 km trip this year again...godspeed and fair winds.

cafengocmy wrote:

You write as if you are still enframed in the European or American context. The awareness of surroundings seems to be much more advanced than I have seen anywhere in America. Most Americans don't know where they actually are on the road within I would guess 20 yards and an American who is not a long experienced truck driver would not dare to pass through an opening with less than 2 feet of clearance on either side.. Here scoots and buses routinely come within centimeters of each other in calculated moves. The accident rate which seems so high is not quite so bad when you understand that Vietnamese are on their wheels quite a bit more than Americans are. The rate per mile traveled is probably less serious than the rate per population. I ride a lot in this traffic. It was daunting at first but I learned the signals and every move or change is signaled to the relevant parties. All that tooting and constant hand motion makes eminent sense to the riders and drivers. Their ears as well as heir eyes tell them exactly where everyone around them is and what each is about to do.. I hear about that terrible accident rate but I have seen only a couple of accidents.

Much better.  And I agree!    Actually everyone agrees with the 'problem'.   It really annoys me to be (nearly!) run down on sidewalks, and (centimetres..?)  I would have said millimetres, but being brushed aside on quite a few occasions, maybe the old stories of blind eyes and deaf ears need a touch up too.  Pun intended.           Peripheral vision is a prerequisite...

I ride too, and yes, there seems a heightened awareness.   Road Rage simply does not exist.  Everyone I have observed being bowled over seems more accepting (and even apologetic?) for daring to occupy a space someone else needed.   Most seem to operate on the premise that a space MUST be filled.   By MY motorbike!   I have checked, and no, it is not my paranoia...

Jokes are here too, for (all too often) Gravity works, even on the 50cc Honda scooters carrying the (obligatory?) two-tonne load and the inevitable spills are cleaned up by everyone (yes, even the children) while the 45 second traffic jam is patiently filled with much joking, laughter and general acceptance.

The context of culture?  I agree here too.

Then there is the 'other side'.  (sorry Sam; couldn't resist...)   Logic tells us it is a far, far better thing we do  (Told in more than Two Cities)  to walk and watch approaching traffic.  Certainly improves our chances.      ..or is it only we who are wise..?

Drunks are ubiquitous, as are the 'new young' (males: who else?) zapping around at breathtaking speeds complete with loud & blappy mufflers.  Makes me (almost) homesick...    Opposing(?) this is (many) too young to be legit. children (obviously) learning the ropes.   Carefully.   And again, accepted, right or not.  Then (sigh!) we all see the whole family on the scooter with BOTH parents texting...   The wide-eyed kids tell the true story...   I too, cringe to see this stuff.   

Yes, a few fatals.  Most on open roads.   Speed really does kill.   The inner cities (seem to be) a lot slower & safer, utilised by (everyone?) capable of breathing to get from A to B.   Trucks and Tour buses pose the real risks.      Taxis are generally slower and more careful.       My subjective observations.

..so is there an answer..?   Dunno.  Viet Nam is in transition, so adaptation will happen.   So keep on truckin' (walking is safer)  Just DON'T STOP!!   They won't ignore you: just avoid you.   Hope is the last to die...

70 years old wrote:

eodmatt

Pushing my wife's wheel-chair to and from the hospital has caused one middle-aged woman to inform me that, "the Vietnamese way is is to walk with traffic." As getting my wife into any vehicle including an Ambulance generally causes physical injury, I'll keep pushing her wheel-chair against traffic the 730 m to the hospital.

As I have seen dozens of Police Officers, while pushing my wife's wheel chair against traffic, my guess is that it is either a B.S. Law or they think that I'm doing the safest thing for my wife and ignore enforcing the Law

Sam

Well, you are speaking about the Cong An....... and you are a foreigner, so ......

eodmatt wrote:

70 years old wrote:

eodmatt

Pushing my wife's wheel-chair to and from the hospital has caused one middle-aged woman to inform me that, "the Vietnamese way is is to walk with traffic." As getting my wife into any vehicle including an Ambulance generally causes physical injury, I'll keep pushing her wheel-chair against traffic the 730 m to the hospital.

As I have seen dozens of Police Officers, while pushing my wife's wheel chair against traffic, my guess is that it is either a B.S. Law or they think that I'm doing the safest thing for my wife and ignore enforcing the Law

Sam

Well, you are speaking about the Cong An....... and you are a foreigner, so ......

Got me good on that.

I've actually discussed the against vs with traffic issue with medical personal at the hospital. They agree. And when I've seen them walking on the road it is on the Left(Facing on coming traffic) side.

As was mentioned earlier, things are changing. For one thing, people drive infinitely better than they did in the early 1970's, at least from my observations.

Sam

Hmmmmm, I always walk with traffic, UNLESS I'm walking across a bridge.  For some reason, on a bridge, I want to see them coming at me, rather than from behind.  Strange, I guess?  Maybe if I was left-handed, I'd walk on the other side, but the right side seems more comfortable.

I walk on whichever side is handiest to my destination and which has the better walking surface. On occasion I walk closer to the middle, depending on how the traffic is. The scooterists are watching out for you better than you are watching out for yourself. Not so much the car pilots and trucks.

cafengocmy wrote:

I walk on whichever side is handiest to my destination and which has the better walking surface. On occasion I walk closer to the middle, depending on how the traffic is. The scooterists are watching out for you better than you are watching out for yourself. Not so much the car pilots and trucks.

connivance vs safety

Instead of pulling imaginary numbers out of the air, lets  use Wikipedia's chart and do the math. Note, this significantly loads the numbers in the favor of my position. Say that, likely overstated, you are 100 times more likely to be killed walking an the suicide side as the safe side and using 24.5 deaths per 100,000 as a median and assuming that the 24.5 deaths are also all pedestrians, also a simplification that aids my position;

Safe side =2.45/100,000 deaths 0r about 2.5 per 100,000
Suicide side= 245/100,000 deaths 0r about 2.5 per 1,000


    100,000 people       100,000 vehicles        bn km                             Total 2013
Vietnam        24.5                    55                         n/a                              22,419
USA                  10.6                    12.9                         7.1                             34,064


Even as lopsided as the numbers are on my side, I suspect most people will go along with you. The risk just doesn't strike most people as worth the effort to avoid.

Those of us who have spent much of our lives in rather dangerous surroundings, tend to work at reducing the risk involved in our actions.

Sam

How do you determine the "safe side" when traffic is going both ways on both sides? Granted there is less of that on the main streets that have walls running down the centerline, but it is there, too. People don't want to drive a couple of blocks to the turn-around. That goes for which side you walk on, too. I am not so spry as to attempt to go over those barriers and won't walk half a cay so to get to a break in the wall. 10 years ago there were, indeed, no rules, but rather, customs i.e. most folks drove on the right most of the time and traffic lights were quaint decorations on street corners. Traffic mostly stops for red lights now but if there is little cross traffic the two wheelers will go ahead even as the cars mostly wait for the green. I do not cease to be fascinated that two dense streams of traffic can and do safely flow through each other at major intersections. Turning left into oncoming was scary the first time, but where it is almost ll scooters it is what makes sense.

Well, you are talking about Ha Noi.There is nothing about the place that qualifies it to be on my list of preferences at all.

The traffic which seems  to be running at breakneck pace is actually mostly 25 mph or slower. The 40 on the speedometer is in KMs.  What impresses me is that on a busy intersection at morning rush hour you can watch several times more people go by without any stoppage than the number that would lock up traffic into hours of immobility anywhere in the NE corridor in the USA. Not only more vehicles go by but the average number of "occupants" is greater even if it is scoots. Try  one fourth that number of vehicles or one fifth the people in DC. Nothing would move again until the excavators clear it all away,
There are no traffic jams except where highways converge as an unbelievable number of trucks and buses all try to get into Sai Gon at the same time around 0400 to 0500 hours.

One thing is for sure.  When I'm walking from the bus station, on Truong Dinh St., towards Dist. 3 and Tao Dan Park, I always walk on the right side.   One of the highlights of my day is guessing the color of the outfits of the girls at Le Duyen 4 and the other salon, whose name escapes me now.  I always seem to be dropping something, or stopping to tie my shoes as I walk past those shops.  Of course, it's only to see the color they're wearing, and nothing more.  Yeah, right!!

How do you like it now with the rapid proliferation of xe dien- electric bikes? 7 and 8 year olds drive them. I like seeing the young girls on them that could not afford to be motorized until the advent of the  7.000.000 VND electrics. The girls ride bolt upright and look like they are in control of the world.
My friend's wife got a used one 2 years ago to ride  for her daily trips to market. I told him she would get fat. 2 years later she has , indeed, gained a lot of weight.

Don't say you don't drink. Say you have a bad liver. That is understood. Lots of folks have bad livers n VN from Hep B. Saying you don't drink just sounds crazy, or worse, some kind of holier than thou..

cafengocmy wrote:

How do you like it now with the rapid proliferation of xe dien- electric bikes? 7 and 8 year olds drive them. I like seeing the young girls on them that could not afford to be motorized until the advent of the  7.000.000 VND electrics. The girls ride bolt upright and look like they are in control of the world.
My friend's wife got a used one 2 years ago to ride  for her daily trips to market. I told him she would get fat. 2 years later she has , indeed, gained a lot of weight.

Aren't they a nightmare? They are so silent that you just don't hear them coming.