How Driving is Still Dangerous

Several weeks ago, I finally crashed my little Honda moto. They say you aren't a true Cambodian driver until you've had an accident. Over eight months of driving, I'd had two scrapes with crazies trying left-hand turns in the right-hand lane (no harm done). I hoped that these qualified as "accident." (I also tried to drive a water filter home and crashed in the gravel, but that was my own stupidity.) I just didn't want anything to happen late at night, because calling my supervisors at 10pm has potential to be mortifying.

But alas, I crashed into someone at noon on a Monday. I was headed to lunch with one of my Khmer partner organizations. There were several of us "moto-ing" to a farewell lunch for a departing staff member. The road outside my partner is like a freeway, but it's a residential street. I was likely driving around 40km with another MCCer on the back when someone pulled out in front of me from an apartment complex. He was trying to balance whatever he had on his moto (I can't remember what it was) and was driving erratically while trying to pick up speed. There was oncoming traffic, no shoulder, fast traffic behind, no space to decelerate, so I crashed into the left side of his moto. He seemed shocked. I was angry...and it was painful.

So yes, I crashed into him. But he didn't look before he pulled out. The Khmer rules of the road dictate you are only responsible for the space directly in front of you. You are not responsible for anything behind you. You are also not responsible to help the other party when involved in an accident. In fact, it's discouraged, because they might get your contact info and sue you, so it's better to hit-and-run.

I didn't fall over. He didn't fall over. In fact, he drove off instantaneously which I didn't notice because I was in so much pain. When I realized later he left, my internal sense of civil morality was extremely violated. My right foot had been crushed between the motos, but after a while, when I could move my toes again, I decided that to get on with it.

We had lunch, I went back to work to finish a presentation I was giving. I wanted to finish it, so I did, while my foot got increasingly painful and swollen. Afterwards, Nicole and I went to the hospital. I got a tetanus shot, and an x-ray (using some 70s-era x-ray machinery straight out of LOST) and was told that there was no lasting damage. I was quite skeptical of that snap judgement of a foot so swollen it couldn't fit into my Chaco. But it's healed just fine. 

Thus concludes the tale of my "you are now a certified Cambodian driver" accident. In the moment, I was frustrated that I had lost control of the situation. Thoughts were racing around my head like fruit in a blender. When you can't move one of your extremities, you've pretty must lost all control of the situtation. In hindsight, it was one of those situations that I'll never fully understand what happened. It was strange, it was surreal, and it was entirely stupid.

So how can this be turned into a learning experience? Well...who knows...it wasn't my entirely my fault.