Whilst we were staying in Sapa there was some sad news that one of the buses that takes people from Sapa to the nearest town, Lao Cai went off one of the roads on the side of the mountain. 12 people were killed with lots more injured. A link to the news story is below.
On our way home we had to take the same route and at the time we travelled they were retrieving the wreck from the bottom of the cliff.
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| The top of the bus |
People do drive like idiots here. Every bus journey I go on I see people and bus drivers overtaking on blind corners and driving much to fast for the conditions they are driving in. As a result of this there are many road fatalities each year. In 2013 a total number of 9,369 people were killed on the roads in Vietnam (29,500) injured. In the UK the figure was 1,730 fatalities for the 12 month period to June 2013.
Much of this is because of motorbikes but I'm sure also a lot of the accidents are because no one is actually trained on how to drive safely. I'm pretty sure this crash is an example of that.
I see car drivers in Vietnam who don't have a clue what they are doing. They drive cars like there motorbikes. They never use mirrors, rarely use indicators and don't have a clue how to reverse park a car, watching them would be hilarious if one of the consequences wasn't things like this happening.
I'm pretty sure the test is similar to the motorbike test where they drive around a track and then are free to drive on some of the busiest roads in the world.
Anyway, not much I can do about it. Back to work next Monday to start a new semester. Its been an amazing holiday. Sapa's one of my favourite places I've been in Vietnam..... I just wish it was closer to Ho Chi Minh City!!!!
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