Death in Cambodia: 10 years old

I was looking for a place to take a break on a recent motorcycle trip between Siam Reap and Phnom Penh. Two things are important: shade and fresh green coconuts. Only after I spotted a likely stopping point did I notice the skid marks on the road. And it was only after I stopped, parked, greeted the owners of the shop, asked for a green coconut that I walked out and saw how long the skid marks were and how they ended right in front of the shop at a chalked in small human figure.

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The shop sells soft drinks and gasoline. Moreover, it is the village's fresh meat outlet. Do I need to say that refrigeration is not widely available in Cambodia, even in areas where there is electricity?

Here there is neither, the cold drinks are iced inside insulated containers colored Coca-Cola red. The meat is laid out for view and exhibits that same color. There are entrails, a pig's head, and the costlier cuts of meat.

The owners tell me that they buy freshly butchered meat every morning, and by evening it is all sold. As we talk, locals stop by and buy 2 or 300 grams of meat, enough for a meal, and then motorcycle or bicycle away.

The gasoline of course does not have to be sold in one day and will keep as long as was needed.

Of course. That's obvious. I guess I am avoiding writing about the kid who was killed twenty days before in front of the proprietors.

The skid mark tells a lot of the story, and, not enough.

The boy's father had been killed on this same road when the son was six years old. The boy's mother was working away from the village when the boy was run over. The family was poor, it is the rice harvest season, and most harvesting is not mechanized, so there was plenty of work available for her, though not near home. The boy was staying with his grandmother.

The car that hit him is what Cambodians call a Tourist Vehicle (laan touris) what we would call a passenger van. The first of these were used to ferry tourists, so the name stuck, even though most of the ones now in use are either hauling goods, or picking up passengers for short trips up and down the national highways.

This one was coming from the town of Kampong Thom, headed toward Siam Reap, a trip it made each day. If you travel Cambodia you meet them everywhere and among Cambodia's drivers they are easily the most aggressive (and I will include drivers for high level military or governmental officials who can drive as if they are the only vehicles on the road). They represent (in my mind) the democratization of impunity and illegal driving here. The two are no longer the private domain of the rich and powerful.

Here in Phum (village) Th'ngal, about 70 kilometers from Siam Reap, the driver did not get away with his bad driving. It is not unusual for a driver to run after an accident, but my hosts said that the boy, hit as he turned his bike to cross the two-lane highway was trapped with his bike under the van when it stopped.

The commune police station sits across the street from the shop, so police were immediately available. A man who came in to buy beef as we talked said that he had been present when it happened and the road had been very quiet, almost no vehicles at all. The owner said that the skid had been measured at 117 meters--more than 380 feet. The van had to be traveling very fast, and since he braked so far away it is very difficult to know why he could not avoid the child, whether the boy stopped in his tracks or continued to cross the road.

To wrap the story up the police took charge and did their thing, measuring, and chalking, but the boy had died immediately. The driver could not run away. The mother was sent for and arrived several hours later while the driver was held and his vehicle 'impounded' (parked in front of the police HQ). After negotiations, the mother recieved $1000 and the Polics got a separate $200 for their work in mediating between the driver and the family. Probably, on a percentage basis, less than what a lawyer might get for the same work in the US. No one could say whether the mother thought that fair compensation, just that it was typical. "If the Police did not get any money they would not help; if they did not mediate, there would be no money.

The driver continues to ply his trade up and down the highway that fronts this gas station, coffee shop, butcher.


Handicap International says (as quoted in the Cambodia Daily) that they record five deaths on Cambodia's highways every day.