A Health & Safety Nightmare?

It’s nothing short of hilarious for the crowds lining Phnom Penh’s riverfront for the annual water festival.

Amongst the beautifully painted dragon boats, the proud crews carrying the hopes of their village, and the throngs of expectant spectators on the bank, a strange phenomenon appears: a boat full of westerners! What’s more, they have little idea how to row, and look utterly ridiculous – as if the bright orange t-shirts aren’t enough, the fools have donned luminous life-jackets - what a joke!

Safety has a similarly low priority just getting to the riverfront. Jumping on a motorbike taxi is quick and easy, but us volunteers are more careful, not least because of our organisation's strict safety rules. Drivers do sometimes wear helmets - but only to avoid giving the police an excuse to fine them. The rest of the family perch perilously behind them with bare heads (and arms, and feet). In a country where life is cheap and the humidity intense, do you really think people worry about donning a hot and heavy safety helmet?

The journey from the provincial town to my village is similarly risky. There is no bus service, and driving a moto up the bumpy mud road is scary even for a hardened Cambodian. So we wait a few hours to cram into a ‘shared taxi’. This ordinary Toyota Camrey car carries an extraordinary load - in addition to ricebags in the boot and boxes on the roof, there are 6 people in the back and 4 in the front! The driver twists forward from his shared seat to control the wheel. It’s a tough job, which may be why he calms his nerves with a little rice wine. In these circumstances, do you honestly think anyone thinks about safety belts?

And if it’s dangerous for motor vehicles, spare a thought for the ordinary pedestrian. Clearly no one else has! There are a few pavements in cities like Phnom Penh, and they have a variety of purposes: a great place for your food stall, or space to tie up your hammock. Parking of motos takes precedence though, complete with wire or string to ensure no pesky pedestrians get in the way. And of course if you have a Lexus then you can park it anywhere, and where better then a nice spot of sidewalk? All of which pushes ordinary people in the path of oncoming traffic, or into the gutter. Now what is the point in man-hole covers again?

So basically health and safety is non-existent in Cambodia.

Some visitors actually celebrate this. After all, aren’t westerners far too controlled and regulated? Cambodia is the last ‘free’ country, away from the interfering reach of authorities. If there are a few guns and drugs, a bit of child abuse and general anarchy on the roads, maybe this is the price we pay to be truly free?

Well, back to our boat. The 2010 water festival in Cambodia will not be remembered for the bright dragon boats, the proud crews or the joy of the winning team.

Tragically, it will be mourned for the deaths of hundreds of Cambodians, apparently crushed on a bridge to the new Diamond Island City area of Phnom Penh.

No doubt over the coming weeks there will be much soul-searching in Cambodia about how such a terrible thing can happen. Hopefully people will be brave enough to tell the truth – that if you have such a blatant disregard for the well-being of your fellow people then there is a tragedy waiting to happen. It should not have taken the deaths of so many innocent people to make the authorities here take health and safety seriously. Hopefully at least now they will – we’ll see.

As the hilarity turns to sadness, perhaps people here may wonder if the fools in the helmets and life jackets weren’t so stupid after all?