I could talk for hours about Vietnam’s motorbikes. Motorbike sales have increased in the country by as high as 9% a year in the past half-decade. It was a time period when global markets saw growth either stagnant or slowing. Three times, the Vietnamese government has re-evaluated its statistics on motorbike growth in this developing nation. Projected initially two years ago to be 33 million by 2020. At the end of 2018, the ministry of Motor Vehicles released its numbers, and already it had reached over 45 million registered motorbikes traversing the country’s roads and streets. That’s a 25% increase from the original estimates. 
With an overall population of 92 million, one can imagine that if you subtracted underage children from the equation, there may be as many bikes registered as people can drive them. In Hanoi alone, a city of 7 million, there are over 5 million registered motorbikes. There are 3.5 million total registered vehicles in the city of Atlanta. The market here is so robust that the top five world manufacturers have all decided to make Vietnam their global headquarters. Negotiating the tiny streets and alleys, ease of movement in congested roads, and less costly upkeep make it the primary mode of transport in this developing nation. With traffic accidents being the single most significant cause of fatalities in the country, it’s no surprise that the central government is working hard to solve the motorbike question. The World Health Organization has shown that three years of road fatalities in Vietnam equals one hundred years of deaths from pandemic disease. They don’t make a vaccine for that. It’s obvious to see, however, sitting in a coffee house window looking down on the bustling streets below that the motorbike is the king of the road here in Southeast Asia, at least for now.
