Sidewalks and Cars

You know something is wrong when you start seeing cars on the roads and all the motorbikes pushed to our supposed "sidewalk". While Miki, Peter, Mai, and I were taxi-ing over to service learning, we couldn't help but notice that all the motorbikes were pushing their way through the traffic by short-cutting it on the sidewalk. And I mean, almost EVERY single motorbike too. If you were gonna try to ride your motorbike on the actual road, you were gonna lose it in the race to work. It made me really wonder about the increase in cars and how it effects the streets.

To me, it seems like the cars are taking over the streets and the little motorbikes are being pushed aside. As rich car riders begin making their name, the lives of the little motorbikers are becoming more dangerous. One tiny bump from a car and you are done. And furthermore, the way I've seen it, the attitudes of car drivers are different as well. They know they can push through and everyone would just have to get out of the way.

In a freak accident once, our taxi driver and another car driver began a crazy car chase with one another because of a tiny bump into each other. The car driver honestly didn't even give a crap about the 10 million motorbikers that were out that night for the last day of the 1000 year anniversary. It was speeding, breaking quickly, swerving in and out of people without caring about the safety of others on the road. It made me really think about what sort of position do car drivers have to be able to honestly not give a fuck.

So in conclusion, I guess I hate cars here but at the same time, I'm the one with a car back home and riding taxis here all the time. Who am I to write a blog about this when I am being extremely hypocritical? And who am I to say that maybe, in a couple years, when more people are writing cars and less riding motorbikes, that the streets won't get safer? in the long run? Who knows. But as of now, I'm tired of seeing motorbikers pushed to the margins of the streets.