When you cruise the streets here in Da Nang or anywhere else in Vietnam, you will quickly notice that there are an exceptional number of 2-wheeled vehicles on them, no matter where you go. Where I grew up in USA, you rarely see any motorcycles and the type of motorbikes that are commonly used in South East Asia must be illegal or something because I don't recall ever seeing one like we have here back in the States at all ever.
Here in Vietnam though, I would say that there are almost too many motorbikes.
For most people living in Vietnam, owning a car or truck is well beyond what they could possibly afford. Cars cost just as much here as they do anywhere else in the world, and unless you want a VinFast car, which is the only Vietnamese brand, chances are you are going to be paying more for it here than you would elsewhere. This is because of tariffs or something like that, I don't really know what the deal is, but I do know that for the average Vietnamese worker, having a vehicle that costs more than $20,000 is something that may as well be $200 million because it is a sum that they will never be able to pay off.
Motorbikes on the other hand are at little as $1000 and as crazy as it might sound to a foreigner, this amount of frequently financed because there probably aren't very many working class people that have $1000 lying around. The average monthly wage here in less than $1000 a month and once you figure in regular living expenses, there just isn't that much left over.
The amount of motorbikes on a road can be overwhelming at times and I am not a fan of this. Then again though, if we were to change all the bikes to cars, these roads would be impossibly gridlocked with traffic all day, every day.
I looked it up the other day and found out that it is estimated that there are 58 million motorbikes in the country and that is just a crazy number of bikes when you consider that there are 90 million or so people in the country in total. I suppose that must mean that nearly every single adult has at least one motorbike. I own one as well, although I rarely drive it and it has been sitting in my garage for so long that I seriously doubt it will start if I went down there and tried to make that happen.
For me, it doesn't make a lot of sense to drive anywhere when I can get a taxi for a couple of dollars and leave the navigation to someone else. I also will never drink and drive and since when I am going somewhere I tend to be having a drink, that is just one more reason why I shouldn't do it.
Normally, I would only drive my motorbike if I was going somewhere exotic like a waterfall or a nature trail somewhere, but since I have been here for around 7 years I have already been to all of those places and don't really feel the need to return.
People who are visiting here seem to rent them a lot and I am kind of surprise at how few accidents there are considering that these visitors normally have very little experience driving a bike and don't seem to have full control of it.
one thing that is good about living here though is that even though the roads look extremely hectic to someone that has never driven in such an environment, it actually flows really well and the other drivers are very accommodating to the other drivers around them. This is particularly magical when you consider that although there are thousands of intersections here, I have never seen a single stop sign anywhere in this city.
The rule here is that you are on your own at an intersection and you should just slow down and everyone will kind of work it out among themselves at that juncture. I think a good rule of thumb is that the larger your vehicle is, the more right of way that you have.
When I get to a busy intersection I will often use a lorry (a big truck) as a shield of sorts and cruise next to it in order to get through a tricky and very busy roundabout or traffic-circle.
When I look around it is evident that there are a ton of motorbikes here, but until I looked up the stat I never would have guessed that there was nearly 60 million bikes here. That must be an absolutely huge industry for Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and other brands that make these things.