A typical Lao family pulls out in front of our car. Four people on the motorcycle with a 20 gallon jug of water up front. Dad is driving, the smallest member, maybe two years old, is standing on the vehicle seat sandwiched between dad and his mom behind him. The sister, maybe six years old, holds onto mom with her arms as she takes up the last centimeter of space on the Honda Wave. None of them wear helmets and they look so comfortable together. They aren´t even concerned enough to look both ways before flinging themselves into incoming traffic, they know others on the road will stop for them. And we do.
Women pass by on their motorcycles with fifteen bags of goods hanging off of the handle bars. They place their feet on the ground when the car traffic gets tight enough and just continue to push themselves through. Sometimes they stick to the right side, but mostly they weave in between cars and trucks whenever they find an opportunity.
We come to a red light and have a laughing scoff as motorcycles driven by a man with a girl behind them in her Lao skirt perched with both legs hanging off the left side push past us. The guy with a fuel tank joins them in front of us. And then within three minutes, there are 18 motorcycles in front of us. It is now crowded enough that the traffic is bottle necked into one lane as they pass through the stop light. Every so often, the number of bikes in front of us lessens a bit as one or two decide to jump the gun and fling themselves across the intersection. Not all are gutsy enough to follow, but as soon as the last light changes to yellow, they are all gone as we await an extra ten seconds to get the green go-ahead.
The motorcycles around here are like royalty on the road. An unwritten rule is that any accident is at the fault of the bigger vehicle, so it is my job to keep these bikes protected, not their own job to be conscious. They can zip through traffic and run through stop lights. We even see many driven at night coming up the wrong lane without any lights on.
If we drove a motorcycle here with our family on board, all our travel times would be cut in half, as well as our gasoline bill! But, I have seen too many crashes. It seems every week one of our friends is getting patched up after some sort of motorcycle run-in. I have also seen way too many chalk outlines of motorcycles on the asphalt. Here in Laos, when there is a vehicle accident, it is illegal to move the vehicle until the police arrive. When they do, they like to draw around the vehicle.
For now, we will keep to using a four door vehicle. And simply watch as
-a bike converts into an egg delivery with at least 50 crates stacked up on the back
-fifteen ducks are hung by their feet off the back of a motorcycle as though it had a tailgate
-a man keeps pushing a live goat down as he transports him on his bike
– a mom holds her three-month old baby in one arm while she uses her other to swerve through the cars
-a bike driver takes the road with an iv still in his right arm as he holds up his iv bag in the other hand.
These are all pretty run of mill sights in our area and we catch ourselves wondering whether safety precautions are a privilege for wealthy communities.
