Cambodian Traffic Laws

Now that it has been a year since we lost Manit in a motorbike accident, I thought I would write about driving here as a way of explaining what goes on. I guess, technically speaking, there are Cambodian traffic laws but you would never know. Every rule in the book is broken in every way. Example: Imagine driving down a one way street and have oncoming traffic on both sides of you. Driving a car, you are supposed to have a driving license and there are driving schools for that. But, since the vast majority of the traffic is from motorbikes, that does not count for much. So, everyone on a motorbike (no age limits enforced) drives however they want or know how to. And you can see everything on a motorbike. A family of five, three or four adults, a driver and two huge pigs upside down on the back. And everything possible in between. So imagine all of these motorbikes and no enforced traffic laws. Utter chaos. The only thing that makes it work in a small way is that most people do not typically drive fast and therefore can avoid accidents or they are minor.

There are about five traffic lights in town but there is not one stop sign. Think about that for a moment. No need to stop when going through an intersection, turning on to a road etc. I can, and have, gone from my house on one side of town all the way to the airport on the other side of town without having to stop once. There are some half-hearted attempts at traffic enforcement. Well, half-hearted is being very generous. Police will stop people for going the wrong way but it does nothing to change behavior. Cambodians do not like the fact they have to pay fines when they do this because they know the police pocket the money. When my staff complained about this I told them they should follow the rules and that would avoid paying a fine. And, it happens in other countries where traffic violations are enforced and it cost significantly more that the small fines they pay here.

I read recently that there was a more comphrehensive traffic code that was written and came into law in Cambodia. Laws banning driving under the influence, mandatory helmets on motorbikes etc. The irony was it was passed in the same month that Manit died and there has been little or no effort to enact the laws. One local Siem Reap official was quoted as saying something to the effect that by enacting the law it would create a hardship on the people. As if not allowing someone to drive drunk would mean they could not go out and have a good time and that would be a hardship. I would love to have the chance to tell this person that death is a far greater hardship than the inconvenience caused by not being able to drive while drunk. With that kind of mentality, when will anything ever change?

One thing you rarely see on a motorbike here are rear view mirrors. They are just not used. Even our staff moto had them but they ended up being taken off because they were not used. In Phnom Penh they tried to enforce having rear view mirrors on all motorbikes but it never took hold. If you go there today I don't think even the majority of motorbikes have them. I always thought it was an apt metaphor that in a country with such a dark period in the not so distant past that Cambodia has, that they would not want to be looking behind, only forward.