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09 February 2019

So You Want to Come to Vietnam and Ride a Motorbike? Part 6 — Death

As you know if you've read my blog for any length of time, I don't pull punches.

Motorized two-wheel vehicles are inherently dangerous. That is the #1 reason my parents never let me get anywhere near one growing up. Reason #2 was that, in the 60's, the middle class image of motorcycles was that "only hoodlums ride them", e.g. Marlon Brando in that iconic movie who's title escapes me in my old age.

This is Part 6 of my "So You Want to Come to Vietnam and Ride a Motorbike?" series of posts. To see the previous posts, click on a number to open that post in a new window: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

This sixth part is graphic and unforgiving. That, and the fact that the photos below show dead people, is why it's titled "Death".

I didn't know these people and probably never saw them. Even so, I hope they teach you something. Or some things.

The photos below depict something that happens with such regularity here in Vietnam that I know no one who is surprised when they hear or see of it. That's why I was shocked last week when, after witnessing a man on a scooter get bumped from behind by a car, my seven-year-old daughter who's ridden on a motorbike among hundreds of other motorbikes almost every day of her life, said, "That's the first time I've seen someone fall off a motorbike."

Death is always nearby when you ride a motorized two-wheel vehicle. When you ride without a helmet, death is sitting on your shoulder and whispering in your ear to "Go faster! I got this."

None of these people had any protective gear other than a POS helmet, and at least one was wearing minimal footwear. I also know that every single day I see a dozen or more (especially) young Vietnamese men like the ones depicted below riding very fast and recklessly without a helmet. Often they have a young female passenger and sometimes she is riding sidesaddle.

The laws of physics are the same wherever you are in our known universe, no matter your age, color, intelligence, or looks. As I used to say when I went skydiving, "It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop." Coming off a motorbike at speed, what kills you could also be the slide as your skin and soft bits are slowed to a stop by the cheese grater that is the pavement.

IF you ride, please wear a helmet and proper gear regardless of how short the trip or how long you've been riding. Sometimes what kills is not that you ran out of skills, but that someone else did.

One constant of riding in Vietnam is that every road has twice the number of travel lanes as the same road would in the west because people here regularly ride the wrong way along the curb. I see it every time I ride. It's one of the reasons I tell people to NEVER ride along the curb. Looking at the following graphic photos, my guess is that one bike was going the right way, the other one wasn't, and no one  blinked. Whether on not this is what happened, four more young people are dead because they rode a motorbike and at least one of them fucked up.





I did not take these photos and do not know who did. If they are yours, please send me an email so I can give you proper credit.

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