Asian road toll
 

Anyone considering riding a motorcycle in China, (I am working in Shanghai at the moment) check out the official road accident tolls below.
And they are only the official ones!
for an example, The Phiippines unofficial toll is: 9,000 deaths and 493,000 injuries.
Now how much was that insurance?

S.E. Asian Road Toll 2004-2005 (official)
Country....Deaths.....Injuries
China.......107,077....480,864
Brunei............ 28..........645
Burma..........1,308......9,299
Cambodia........824......6,329
Indonesia.......8,761....13,941
Laos..............415......6,231
Malaysia........6,282....46,420
Philippines..... 995...... 6,282


Singapore......211...... 7,975
Thailand.......13,116....69,313
Vietnam........11,319.....20,400

Where's the stats for India? Now THAT would be a sobering statistic.

Here: http://www.driveandstayalive.com/inf..._2000-2002.htm

And while I'm at it, some surprising statistics from the Asia/Pacific region: http://www.factbook.net/EGRF_Regiona...siaPacific.htm

Hmmmm, thanks for that, now I'll have to remember to be careful as well as have fun through their next year

well the silk road or atleast most of it is on the list waiting to get crossed off .. my pops still has a house in south china .. but i heard that many of the citis wont allow motos as well as some of the new toll roads that criss cross the middle kingdom .. and iv heard its a bitch to get a moto in to the county fot temp use ... maybe easies to come from the east .. or buy a bike in china ... so wahts your plan

Hah! Korea is still # 1! Per capita at least. I am out there everyday and have not once driven or riddent the 5 -8 klicks one way without seeing at least three accidents. Red lights only mean hurry. buses just cruise on through without a thought. 35 people killed every day. 6 of them are pedestrians killed on the sidewalks. when the traffic gets bad, cars will use the sidewalks to go arounds a jam, or to park. we just assume that 5-20 cars will go throuhg a lihgt before we even begin to move on the green.

Hello, do you have any information or insite oin getting a bike into china. I am planning to ride through to kazakstan and was wondering if this would be a problem.
Cheers,
CHRIS

Chris - there is a 'rejional forum' that deals with china ... specifically see this post
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/ubb...ML/000364.html

This forum is for saftey and advisories .. wars accident rates etc.

Is there any way of knowing what percentage of the accidents and deaths are people on bikes? We're planning to ride from India all the way across Asia, possibly through China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore etc, but still planning the best route, so any advice would be appreciated! Especially regarding safe places to drive!

Scrub China and Vietnam off your route.

We live In Malaysia, have done for the past decade or so. The stats for Malaysia are shocking, but so is the way people ride and drive. Of the 6000+ deaths on the road each year, about 4000 are motorcyclists BUT many of these are young blokes who don't wear/strap on helmets, and ride as if they are invincible. It is often the case that if they'd had a helmet on their head, instead of carrying it in the basket, there'd be a lot less deaths. Also if passengers wore seatbelts they'd not get flung through the windscreen quite as often... It takes a couple of generations to realise this...

We have ridden here a lot, and have had a few close encounters. Overall, it's like being on a defensive driving course, constantly, whether you're riding or driving, so makes you good at anticipating the unexpected.

But don't get put off, ride with eyes in the back of your head and don't expect other people to be sensible - you can buy a driving licence here instead of sitting for a test!

There are some great roads and wonderful riding off the beaten track, it's worth braving the madness.

Oh yeah, and if a car flashes at you, it means ''Get out of my way'', not ''Please go in front of me!''

Cheers



[This message has been edited by Em & Hame (edited 07 March 2006).]

Hey guys

So this is what puts you off riding in these countries? Come on, we all have to depart this world some time and well if it happens doing something we all love well that is a bonus, isn't it?

Tell me, would you rather ride your bike throught these countries or, put your life in the hands of a bus driver??

I know what I would do!

Cheers guys and keep your feet up!
Ivan

I've been in China for almost five years now, riding for two in the northeast small city of Changchun (only 7,000,000 people) and driving here is like driving in any 3rd world country - crazy. BUT it is well worth the effort. I can't stress enough that you cannot loose focus for even a second because as soon as you do, some nutso driver will head to the sidewalk to beat the next guy thru the light, make a left turn from the far right lane against the light etc.

It is true that it is illegal to ride on expressways on a motorcycle but that's ok with me, I have a Chang Jiang and can't travel that fast anyway. I prefer the road less travelled and therefore safer and more interesting.

We are getting clost to the time we will leave on our RTW (mid July) and feel rather well prepared to drive anywhere after having driven here.

I have heard of others having successfully riden their bikes into China (Grant has mentioned posts here on HU so look for the info you need). I figure if its hard, it probably is worth doing. If it weren't, I'd fly home rather than try to brave the difficulties of driving some 60,000kms home to California and Mexico.

Bottom line, when driving in Asia, especially any of the countries listed in the death tolls above, PAY ATTENTION EVERY SECOND.

Regards,

Jack

Hi,

So far my conclusion about driving in asia and specific now to thailand (because i am here for the moment:)
Traffic seems very scarry and people seem crazy on their bikes but in reality their is a system in this chaos. you just need to find out what these systems and laws are. I am not going to say that they are ectually quiet good drivers but you have to consider that statisticly they are with much much more people on the road. allmost everybody in thailand owns a motorcycle. more traffic, more victims. especially if you dont wear a helmet. but most accidents here happen because people jump on their bike or car in a totally drunken state. not alone but with sometimes upto 3 (in india upto 8) other people on the bike (makes the deathrate even higher).
another serious killer is the driving at night without lights. really dont understand that because they all seems to have quiet modern scooters with everything necesarry on it but somehow they dont like to use it. maybe because of kick maybe because its not fashion to drive with lights...
so, watch out in the weekend when people attend to drink more then usual and dont drive at night as as mentioned a couple of thousand times before on this site.
my girlfriend is now driving her own 200cc trialbike here for the first time. she actually learned to drive here and had no experience before. not even her carlicence in europe and she does fine after riding now more then 2000km...
so dont let it hold you back..

greetz
niels

When I was younger and lived in Los Angeles, my friends and I used to take trips to Tijuana. We would park on the US side and walk across. Since the places we wanted to go were a few miles away (and Tijuana is not a place to stroll through, especially at night!) we would hop into one of the multitude of taxis. These were usually old American police cars turned into taxi duty. Wow, what a fun time those couple of miles were! It costs about $5 to get to where we wanted to get to, but it was definitely money well spent. I couldn't even fathom riding a bike through that city. (I guess this is why many of the motorcycle travelers go through Mexicali or Algodones)