One honk away from utter chaos
By Sheryl-Lee Kerr
Pardon me for so rudely popping out on y'all last week with nary an
explanation but I zipped over to South-East Asia on the spur of the
moment. I have learnt three things about the experience:
One, I shall never complain about Adelaide Airport again.
Two, I shall never complain about Adelaide drivers again. (This
naturally excludes people in cars with troll heads dangling from the
rear-vision mirror - the world's psychiatrists get to hold conferences in Bali thanks to this special group; and those who like mating their front bumpers with your rear tow bar because they think someone left a zero off the speed limit.)
Three, the taking of pictures of the wife of the President of
Mozambique visiting Singapore is very uncool if you also fall flat
on your back in front of her and a whole herd of Japanese tourists. (At
least she got a laugh out of it.)
But it was in Vietnam that I got to appreciate the chaos theory in
action (not counting that which I caused).
I got to see that anything is possible on the road if you really put
your mind to it. And, in Ho Chi Minh City, anything less is
downright uncreative.
It probably comes from having few traffic lights, no lanes, no rules
about which way you should go around a roundabout and hordes of
weaving helmetless motorcyclists, cyclists, cyclo drivers and cars
still deciding which direction they want to go in.
And then there are the horns. I discovered, after listening to this
klaxon symphony for a while, that honking in traffic there is not as
we do it here - as a human exclamation point to convey frustration,
ego or fury.
There, it's a polite way of saying: “ 'Scuse me good sir or ma'am on that two-stroke lawn moweresque vehicular contraption up front, I have just moved into your blind spot and am honking here to let you know I shall shortly be passing within 2mm of your shoulder so I'd appreciate it if you don't move a muscle between now and then. Ta ever so much.”
Then factor in the ant theory which, in many places in South-East
Asia, goes as such: any human-powered vehicle can hold at least 10
times its height and weight as long as you can still fit into the
driver's seat and can still turn the pedals. Visibility is not a big
consideration here. I saw a man with three huge pink mattresses
folded over his head, behind his back, over his lap, around his thighs,
treadling regally down the street, completely oblivious to the
traffic whizzing past him.
I watched one man carrying at least 20m of piping around him in an
enormous loop that was so long it hung down over his handlebars and
got around corners before he did. He was pedalling cheerily as though on
his way to the park.
And yet it all seems to work, for the most part.
This baffled me until I finally understood how. You see these road
users' keen minds automatically worked out what the stupidest action
would be for the person in front of them to do and then took the
appropriate evasive action before said stupid person even contemplated
enacting it.
I tested this theory, myself, by accidently stepping in front of a
moving bus after looking the wrong way (cars drive on the right side
of the road). The bus had already anticipated my death wish and had
moved aside before I could mutter “intensive care unit”. The
driver didn't even look surprised.
I, on the other hand, had instantly converted to at least six religions.
Three Hail Marys later, I found myself suddenly thinking lovingly of
Adelaide's motorists. Based on this I knew it was way past time to come home.
© Sheryl-Lee Kerr & The Advertiser, 07 APR 1998