Teretz

The road from Mui Ne to Nha Trang begins with a brand new stretch of road. It winds its way along the windswept coast. The road climbs over the foothills of mountains as they tumble to the sea. A new road, it is open and uninhabited and really quite beautiful.
The Vietnamese have a very different sense of driving and in particular driving safety is certainly not foremost in their minds. Not only do they see lanes and stop lights as 'suggestions', they don't really adhere to which side of the road is appropriate for driving in any given direction. All of which works to some degree. Now safety, in say the form of helmets, is sorely lacking. Still, it seems that they can get away with driving 8 motorcycles to a lane with up to 5 people on a bike including a 4 year old standing on the crossbar - all without helmets. They get away with it, because they just aren't going that fast. They cut each other off at low speeds and no one gets angry. No one gestures or yells. They just slow down or stop. Likewise when the pass on the highway, they don't wait for a clear view. They pass on corners and hills, knowing that should an oncoming bus appear, the driver won't be angry he'll just swerve. All of this in my view depends on speed.
Having said that, I have yet to see a speed sign. It is likely that I've just overlooked the obvious, but I just haven't seen one. I think they go slow because the roads are always clogged. Well except on that stretch of new highway heading north out of Mui Ne. Where our driver seemed determined to test the gripping power of the bus as her sped through corners.
The sound of the luggage sliding back and forth underneath of us was making me very uncomfortable, so you may not find it hard to imagine Donna, looking frazzled, suddenly raising out of her chair and yelling, with an angry tone that didn't match the politeness of her words (a politeness I'm sure was lost on her audience), "Would you please slow down!"
When our team, and there was a team, of drivers turned to look - partly trying to see who the mad woman in the back was and partly trying to understand what she was shouting about - Donna ducked back into her seat as if it hadn't been her.
Perhaps she made the difference, perhaps we just joined back to the old clogged highway, either way we took everything a little slower after her outburst.