Traffic

In the cities of Cambodia and Vietnam, the traffic at first appearance seems insane, but on second look it is the most amazing ordered chaos I have ever witnessed. Here's a picture of what a busy street looks like.

The most basic road rule is small always yields to big. The bus is the king of the road, followed by SUVs, cars yield to SUV's, and then come motorcycles and mopeds, finally bicycles. The yield rule is important everywhere, but especially in places like Phnom Penh, were traffic lights are just starting to be installed city-wide and where those lights are basically ignored unless the police are monitoring the intersection. Drivers work around problems in various ways. At a busy intersection with no traffic light, as one direction flows freely, the cross direction will begin to build up, more and more, until those in front are finally pushed into the intersection. At that time the cross traffic yields and lets the burst bubble take control. Sometimes it doesn't work so well and an intersection just looks like a colorful plaid fabric. Another interesting technique is the left turn. Motorists making left turns will generally turn into oncoming traffic but to the side, drive in the wrong lane until an opening appears and then cross over to the correct traffic direction.

This has some interesting consequences for pedestrians. If they were to follow the yield rule, on some busy streets there'd never be an opening to cross. So as a pedestrian you just have to go for it. My initial instinct would be to find the tiniest of openings and make a run for it, but that turns into a disaster and could cause a domino of crashes. Instead you have to adopt the most zen-like calm and slowly walk into traffic. The streets are so packed, drivers are ultra aware of everything, by walking slowly, you give them a chance to go around you. It's a bit scary but works.

Mopeds are put to the test here carrying as much cargo as possible, here's a family of 5 on a moped. It's hard to see , but there's a little boy in fron t of the mother.