Moto madness

I am now the proud owner of a bright red Daelim moto, like the many thousand motodups that ply the streets for passengers to ferry around the town for a few thousand riel. I chose a red one because that is the only colour there seems to be - which makes finding your own vehicle in a parking lot of several hundred identical red Daelim motos quite a challenge.

This investment means that I can be from house to work in three minutes without sweating; it also means coping with the phenomenon that is Phnom Penh traffic.

Roads are divided into two-way streets and one-way streets, which also carry traffic in both directions. The main boulevards have a wide lane on one side for traffic going in one direction and another wide lane on the other side with traffic going in the other direction. It is permitted to drive anywhere within the lane, and the principle aim is to weave your way in and out of the competing vehicles in order to gain any advantage as you progress towards your destination. On the inside of each lane is another imaginary lane for traffic coming out of a side road wishing to move accross the lane into the lane going in the opposite direction. Rather than sit waiting at the junction for a gap in the traffic before moving across and turning into the other lane, the trick is to turn into the oncoming traffic and drive along the inside of the lane against the traffic flow until there is a gap to allow you to move across into the proper lane. An alternative is to drive directly out into the traffic, force the cars to stop and then take advantage of the almighty jam you have caused in both directions which will have cleared the road ahead.

There are traffic lights which come in two kinds: traffic lights at which you stop and those at which stopping is optional. The mandatory lights are on the main intersections between boulevards where all drivers seem to have come to a mutual agreement that the lights do provide a useful function. These lights have a display counting down the seconds until the lights change. I suspect part of the reason people actually stop at these lights is a facination at the technical wizardry which lies behind this countdown, like a form of collective hypnotism. The optional lights are on minor streets. Their purpose is merely to warn all other traffic that you have right of way and can move ahead unhindered. The order of priorities is left to providence, which explains why so many accidents occur at these lights.

Near to my house is a miraculous crossroads, an intersection between two busy roads with no lights. There are hardly ever any hold-ups at this junction. After careful observation and experimentation, I have worked out the system : you move forward at moderate speed, projecting the conviction that you do indeed have priority over every vehicle coming from any other direction. If you flinch, you cause a traffic jam; if you just keep moving, a miracle happens and two two-way lanes of busy traffic cross each other without interrupting each other's flow. It may have something to do with positive charges repelling each other. I once flinched and brought a car to a halt at this junction. Within seconds four cars coming from four directions had blocked each others exit routes in a kind of swastika formation, leading to perfect gridlock.

Indeed, the trick does seem to be to just keep moving at moderate speed and leave the rest to providence. The great saving grace for Cambodian drivers is that the average speed of all traffic is fairly moderate - so most collisions are low-velocity impacts.

It seems all very civilized and good-natured, which belies the underlying chaos - like so much else in this country.

Fifty years after Norma Lewis wrote the following, and despite (or perhaps because of) the traumas suffered, people seem still to exhibit the fatalism:
There was a rapid, silently swirling traffic in the streets of bicycle rickshaws and cycles; a bus, sweeping out of a side-street into the main torrent, caught a cyclist, knocked him off and crushed his machine... [T]he bus driver, jumping down from his seat, rushed over to congratulate the cyclist on his lucky escpae. Both men were delighted, and the cyclist departed, carying the wreckages of his machine and grinning broadly. No other incident of my travels in Indo-China showed up more clearly the fundamental difference of attitude towards life and fortune of the East and the West.
Norman Lewis, A Dragon Apparent, Chapter 1