I rented a Chinese made 125cc t & g for ten bucks a day. Manuals are
about 6 bucks a day. Most locals ride 100 or 110cc manual scoots. The
gears are foot-controlled, on the right side, with a foot brake on
the other side. Many don’t have floorboards. They have foot pegs.
They look like a cross between a scoot and a motorcycle. There were
quite a few Vespa LX and models around, and Gt’s, the 125 modes. I
hardly saw any vintage Vespa s – maybe ten in all. I understand
they’re more prevalent in Saigon.

The cars do their utmost not to cause accidents with scoots. A tour
guide told me, half-jokingly, that if a car hits a scoot, it’s the
car’s fault – because as far as the government is concerned, the
driver is obviously a “bourgeois self-indulgent capitalist” because
he has a CAR! By the same token, a scoot hitting a bike is at fault,
and a bike hitting a pedestrian is at fault. I only saw one accident
the week I was there, and I was out scootering for five of them. The
key to being safe there is to maintain a low speed; ride your line -
no sudden drifting; and be prepared to yield. Many intersections
don’t have stop-lights, so its four-way scooter traffic zigzagging
between each other. Believe it or not, I found riding there more
relaxing than in NYC, mainly because of the slow speeds (always under
30 mph), lack of cars, considerate motorists, the absence of
testosterone-laden drivers, and the comfort of knowing everybody was
willing to yield.

Even so, there were 300,000 road deaths in the last ten years. I
dunno how that compares to the U.S. rate, adjusted for population
difference, but it seems like a lot. Very few people wear helmets.
The helmets are crap anyway. Its not surprising to see two adults and
two kids on one scoot. Weekends are for loading up the family and
cruising around Hanoi. On saturday night I was in a group of scoots
on a one-way avenue, Trang Tien, that must have been around 3,000
strong, sectioned by the traffic lights I’ll never forget the sight
of that sea of scoots as far as the eye can see, snaking down the
avenue 15 abreast. There was a Kid’s festival, featuring multiple
events, which apparently increased the size of the scooter traffic
thatweekend.

Pedestrians have to take their heart in their mouths to cross the
street in Hanoi, as evidenced by this excerpt from the NYT:
“TO cross the street in Hanoi requires nerves of steel, a Buddha’s
inner calm, or failing that, a stiff drink. Striking out in all three
departments on my first walk around Vietnam’s capital, I stood at an
intersection and waited. Ahead was a torrential river of noisy
scooters, weaving bicycles, cars and the occasional creaky, packed
bus — no light, no officer directing traffic, no crosswalk. Five,
ten minutes passed, without any break in the flow. Just as I was
about to give up, someone gripped my forearm.

It was a tiny, elderly Vietnamese woman, and before I had a chance to
protest, she pulled me into the flow of buzzing Hondas and
smoke-belching buses. Then, paying no attention whatsoever to
oncoming traffic, she kept walking straight ahead. For a few
terrifying seconds I followed, as scooters, some balancing mattresses
on the rear, others piled high with baskets dripping green, leafy
vegetables, sped directly toward us, swerving aside only at the last
possible instant.”

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