How to cross the road in Viet Nam: Seriously!

The first time I wrote about Saigon, I mentioned the traffic, but I didn’t mention the pedestrians. Pedestrians mix in with the cars, motorbikes and bicycles. There are crosswalks, but the cars and bikes don’t really stop at all of the lights, so most pedestrians cross the street wherever they want to.

Crossing the street in Viet Nam is an adventure. The first rule you need to know is that traffic drives on the right side of the road, just like the good ole USA. The second rule you need to know is that drivers in Viet Nam don’t pay attention to the first rule. Before you step into the street, you wait for a slight lull in the traffic. This lull, I would say is 20 feet between groups of motorcycles traveling at 20 mph. You see a gap like this; you step into the street and keep looking to the right as the traffic weaves around you. Keep moving, near the middle of the street the traffic may begin to flow in the opposite direction, but there are always people driving the wrong way on both sides of the road. You need to feel your way across.

Saigon has the craziest traffic I have ever seen. Motorcycles will drive everywhere in any direction. Driver use stoplights as suggestions, lines on the road as decoration and sidewalks any time they need to. You are likely to see three-wheeled motorcycles hauling several tons of steel or a tiny moped with 60 chickens in their cages. Several times we saw entire families of four on one small motorbike. Frequently we would see a mother holding a small baby behind the father as he wove through traffic.

The first time we crossed the road was near the Chinese market, Minh directed us. The next time was after our first day. We were looking for a pharmacy and had to cross the street a couple of times. Chrissy would walk in my shadow, on the far side of the traffic coming at us. The theory was that the mopeds would avoid 100 kilos of loving tumbling over them and their bikes.

There were a couple of times, I would take a step into traffic and would notice that Chrissy was still on the curb. After the first time, I would just leave her. It was much safer to finish crossing the street than to turn around unexpectedly in the middle of traffic.

At one corner we saw three small boys crossing the street. Two of the boys were probably close to 8 or 9; the youngest boy wasn’t more than 6. The two older boys kept the little one between them as they made their way across. Watching them, I was amazed. More than that, I wondered how parents ever taught their kids how to cross the street.

Once I returned to Japan, one of the teachers told me of her trip to Viet Nam. She said that when she learned how to cross the street in Saigon, the man told her, “Don’t worry. The drivers in Saigon are excellent.” After a pause he said, “We know they are excellent, because they are still alive.”