Driving in Cambodia

            I have never witnessed such organized chaos in my life as I have trying to move about Phnom Penh. On the roads are everything from young, half-clothed children, to bikes, to carts, to motos, to tuk tuks, to Hummers and Range Rovers.

There appear to be absolutely no qualifications (other than affording it) to be able to drive here. No one looks to their sides before going or even turning, if you hesitate you get in an accident, you have to just go.

There are a few traffic lights scattered around town but they are not really followed. They are just now starting to implement a few traffic laws. One is that in certain areas of the city the driver of a moto has to wear a helmet. They can have a newborn in their lap without one on, but the driver has to wear one. I guess they are also trying to regulate that motos have to have side mirrors, not that it matters since no one uses them anyway.

I don’t know how to explain the way people here drive. They literally just squeeze into every possible available space. Leave 3 inches between you and whatever is in front of you and sure enough, another person will squeeze in there and cut you off. Cars are constantly turning into your lane and multiple times you will be forced into such a tight area that you have to push yourself off of the car that just ran into you. The other day I was crossing a busy road near work. I went halfway through the road and was waiting to go the other half (as is custom) and a girl came from the other way and ran into the front of my motto. She just kept going. She drove completely the opposite way and just swiped me as I was stationary. Because most people don’t have money and the police and courts are pretty much worthless, when accidents happen no one stops.

Did I mention that while there are lanes painted on many roads, even those don’t matter. There is no real one way to drive. It is a common occurrence to see people driving into oncoming traffic. They just honk their horn and flash their lights and hope the other person gets out of the way, which they usually do. We even saw this when driving down to the beach on a 2 lane road in the country. People would pull out into oncoming traffic to pass and cause traffic jams by making oncoming traffic slam on their brakes to avoid a head on collision.

So naturally, after about 10 days of witnessing this madness, I had to join it. I rented a moto so that I could drive myself around town. While it is incredibly terrifying and may completely destroy my ability to ever drive in a place with actual traffic laws again, it has been a great experience and saved me a ton of money. The freedom to go explore the city on a bike has been great, and getting the moto up to 30 or 40mph along the road by the Mekong river is about the only way to ever feel a bit of cool relief outside in this hot humid climate. And don't worry mom, I pretty much (almost) always wear a helmet..