I miss the Saigon of 2007, when I first moved there. There were hardly any cars other than taxis. Over the 6 years before I stopped living there, the change was immense. And last time I went back, in 2022, it was overrun with cars. And worse: it’s cars driven by people clearly trying to drive like they’re on motorbikes. All over the place, not sticking to lanes. It was absolute chaos. Especially down some of the narrow laneways clearly not built for cars.
The average car driver has gotten a bit better, I’ve only been hit by 1 driver not understanding how big their vehicle was (and 1 driver not hitting the ebrake/engaging the clutch and rolling back into my bike before I could get out of the way). But yeah, even 1 car for every 20 bikes fucks up traffic for everyone, especially when they have to stop to crawl by a parked car or something. I have some hope things will improve as Hanoi bans ICE engines inside the city and other cities take notice.
Even so, I will take riding in the worst HCMC traffic over America’s psychotic, egotistical drivers.
I miss the Saigon of 2007, when I first moved there. There were hardly any cars other than taxis. Over the 6 years before I stopped living there, the change was immense. And last time I went back, in 2022, it was overrun with cars. And worse: it’s cars driven by people clearly trying to drive like they’re on motorbikes. All over the place, not sticking to lanes. It was absolute chaos. Especially down some of the narrow laneways clearly not built for cars.
The average car driver has gotten a bit better, I’ve only been hit by 1 driver not understanding how big their vehicle was (and 1 driver not hitting the ebrake/engaging the clutch and rolling back into my bike before I could get out of the way). But yeah, even 1 car for every 20 bikes fucks up traffic for everyone, especially when they have to stop to crawl by a parked car or something. I have some hope things will improve as Hanoi bans ICE engines inside the city and other cities take notice.
Even so, I will take riding in the worst HCMC traffic over America’s psychotic, egotistical drivers.