Motoring in the Land of Smiles

[zanemay]

I putting up this post in support of Fidel's post on Thai drivers.

 

 

 

Tthe most dangerous thing about Thailand is the traffic. I am grateful for every day that I do not get hit by a car, bus or motorcycle. A couple of months ago I was almost hit INSIDE a covered market by a motorcyclist riding through the aisle! I forgot to look both ways.

 

 

 

A Japanese fellow who came to Thailand for many years lived in my condo building. One day he hopped on the back of a taxi and waved goodbye to the manager. He was dead 10 minuteds later. It is absolutely total fucking mayhem out there!

 

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A Crash Course in Thai Traffic

 

 

 

Oh beware, innocent American! Do not take your naive view of the operation of motor vechicles to Thailand. If you do, your life will be, as Calvin Hobbs said, "Nasty, brutish and short." Especially short.

 

 

 

What amazes me every time I come back from a foreign country is the way Americans drive. Last year, just back from Italy one day, I was driving to work the next. There I was proceeding down a six lane city street where the traffic was moving at around 30 miles per hour! "This is incredible!" I thought. European drivers race madly along every narrow city street and country lane. Every green light launches a Grand Prix. Here I was doing the speed limit. Was this a funeral procession? But no. There was no hearse and the cars didn't have orange stickers on their windshields.

 

 

 

Equally amazing - really incredible by international standards - is the attitude American drivers have towards pedestrians. They stop for them!!! After coming back from abroad I am often quite irritated. I am standing on the sidewalk thinking about where I would like to go. I glance into the street. A car coming along stops! The driver is gazing at me. I hadn't even decided to cross - now I feel like I should! What is wrong with these people?

 

 

 

Such an egalitarian society! Anywhere else in the world pedestrians are treated as...well...pedants. Drivers are the elite. Pedants are not allowed to slow the elite! No place else is this more true than in Thailand. Oh my God, if you walk into a street in Thailand, even into one of the oh-so-rare crosswalks, with the idea that traffic is going to stop, you will be hit. Hard and soon!

 

 

 

It is difficult to imagine many more hazardous experiences than crossing a street in Thailand. Skydiving is so much safer! Being a soldier in a war zone is safer. In the northern city of Chiang Mai, for instance, my Lonely Planet guidebook sites two "improvements" that have helped to speed traffic through the busiest part of the city: The elimination of many traffic signals and the instituition of several one-way streets. That flowing traffic sounds good, yes? But only if you are driving in it. Every time I stood at the edge of one of those big one-way streets, looking at three lanes of rushing cars, trucks, motorbikes and tuk-tuks, I was dumbfounded. How could this be? There were no lights, no crosswalks, no overhead walkways, no pedestrian tunnels. Nothing. There were lots of other pedestrians, too. All peering up the street looking for the smallest break into which they might throw their bodies and hope for the best. What about old people? Forget it! They better live by all of the services they need or take a taxi. There are no old pedestrians in Thailand...now I wonder why that might be?

 

 

 

My first experience navigating Thai traffic as a driver was in the sweet little country province of Nan. I had rented a motorbike to take a trip out of town and I quickly got used to the basic rules of the road. All traffic in Thailand moves on the left and I did well with that. Outside of town motorbikes generally kept out of the regular traffic lanes and stayed in a shoulder area marked with a white line. This made sense and I motored comfortably off to the side. Then I saw her! A wrong-way biker coming at me in my little shoulder lane! What the hell?! Is she drunk?

 

 

 

But oh no, never fear, this is just a common Thai motorbiking practice. Anytime it is more convenient to ride against traffic, go ahead! After awhile, I began to see why. There is no such thing as courtesy when Thais are behind the wheel of an automobile. The motorbiker faces the same aggression from cars and trucks as do pedestrians. It is not worth the risk of trying to cross in front of hostile traffic to do something so relatively unimportant as getting into the correct flow. The more sensible thing is to go short distances in the wrong shoulder lane against the prevailing traffic. There are also many, many multilane roads with median strips in Thailand. Here the motorbiker has to cross four or six lanes of rushing traffic to get to the correct side. Inconvenient and suicidal! Along these lovely roads the motorbike traffic is sharing narrow shoulders like little two-way streets. Perhaps you have to be there, but it really makes sense. And of course, after a short while, the prevailing logic overtook me and I was wrong-way motorbiking with the rest of them.

 

 

 

There are many other Thai driving practices to surprise the Western motorist. A red light functions very differently in Thailand. In the U.S. a red light lasts no more than a minute and means STOP. But in Thailand it means STOMP! The light is usually much longer - in Bangkok the red lights are so long that stopped drivers turn off their engines. Consequently, it is very, very important never to get stopped by one. You are motoring toward an intersection - fine. Uh-oh. The light turns red! STOMP the accelerator! You must force your way into the intersection in front of the green-light traffic. If you don't you will get stuck for three or four minutes. There is no particular limit on how long the red-light drivers charge into the interesection, either. If there is any space in front of the green-light traffic they jam in.

 

 

 

Nor does a red light mean STOP to the Thai motorbike rider planning to turn left. In this case it means SLOW DOWN - just a little. If you are doing 60 mph and approaching an intersection where the autos are stopped, then slow to 40 mph when turning left. This speeds you on your way and helps the flow of arterial traffic. Never mind how very disconcerting it might be to the motorbiker going along with the green light and encountering you bolting onto the road without a glance in his direction. Such a wimpy attitude! You must be brave to motorbike in Thailand.

 

 

 

What about passing? Good news! It is allowed all the time. Solid lines, double lines, "No Passing" signs? Ha! Decoration, decoration, decoration! Blind curves or oncoming traffic? Whatever! Pass, pass! If a car or motorbike is coming, flash your lights or beep your horn. For the farang (white foreigner) who might have drifted away from the shoulder to avoid mounds of monsoon-washed sand, small children or any of the 8 million stray dogs in the country, this passing-at-will can be a little troubling. One can be biking along, free as the breeze, and suddenly see, coming around the curve up ahead, a slow truck in its lane and a fast car in yours! Or, much worse and occupying a lot more of the road, a slow truck in his lane and a fast bus in yours. Oh my Lord, where to go!? It's OK. No worry, mate. Just squeeze back towards the edge where you belong. But make no mistake, it's up to you. The other drivers are fully committed to what they are doing. Corragio! These roads are for the brave.

 

 

 

So who are these brave riders? Mostly they are Thais. Men and women going about their business. In the morning it is fun to watch girls in business suits scooting to work on their Honda Dreams, often two on a bike. The women motorbike the most sensibly. But the age limit for riding a motorbike in Thailand is apparently "whenever you can reach the controls" and I have seen kids who looked no older than eight taking their siblings to school. And I have seen kids twelve to fourteen riding like...well...kids twelve to fourteen! Speeding in large groups, laughing loudly and turning around to shout with their pals behind them.

 

 

 

The other reckless wonder is the young farang - or the middle-aged farang in his second childhood. And they are not limited to riding Honda Dreams. When I wanted to take a trip up steep mountain roads, a demure and elegant lady told me I had better take "a choppa." A "choppa!?" Was I hearing correctly, or was she saying something else in her flawed English? Surely she did not mean a "chopper" - a Harley Davidson with a low seat and big handlebars and huge engine with loads of horsepower? I dismissed this. Couldn't be. But as soon as I got to the tourist areas, there they were - choppers for rent! Everywhere. And those young and mid-life crisis farangs would be on them, often for the first time in their lives, speeding wildly from bar to bar and beer to beer. Big shots! Feet up, gut out, Thai girls holding on for dear life. On the little resort island of Phuket in 1998 four hundred people were killed in motorbike accidents! Ah, but who is going to miss some fat, shirtless, fifty year old farang who has chosen to loudly display his beer belly and mid-life crisis on a high speed motorcycle. Hopefully the little Buddhist girl on the back will be reborn into a better life.

 

 

 

Where are the police in all these scenarios, you might wonder? Absolutely, totally, 100% non-existant! In seven weeks I saw no traffic police and no enforcement of basic traffic law. Speed limit is self-enforcing: go as fast as you want. When you kill yourself you won't speed anymore.

 

 

 

Actually, to be fair, I have heard about traffic enforcement. In rare instances, police do stop motorists. The prevailing "fine" is 200 baht for a motorbike and 500 baht for an auto. More if farang are driving. The "fine" is paid on the spot to a policeman who dispenses with the tedium of actually writing out a formal ticket. Remember, paper is expensive in Thailand.

 

 

 

In addition to all of the above, there are loads of other hazards on the streets and highways. Pedestrians are everywhere and sometimes city sidewalks are so full of merchandise and vendors that all foot traffic is forced onto the busy street. Dogs roam freely and none of them are neutered - males are liable to dart across the street at any moment in pursuit of hot females and dog fights spill off sidewalks into traffic.

 

 

 

The practice of parking in the street is even a bigger hazard. Delivery trucks and construction vehicles are the most common, but passenger car drivers park for short times without any thought of blocking the road or using flashing lights. And an approaching motorbiker is so busy looking in every direction for trouble that it is easy to miss the fact that one is coming onto a vechicle that is parked where it should be moving. Many a time I looked ahead just in the nick of time to notice. Equally surprising is poorly marked or completely unflagged road construction. I have seen work sites where hundreds of yards of road edge dropped off a couple of feet without any indication or nightime lighting. Pity the poor motorbiker who goes over the side! You must be most alert while biking in this country - these roads are only for "the quick and the brave."

[pattaya127]

Had something to load off your back, didn't you?

 

The one thing that i find ridiculous are these kids rushing on their motobikes, with their shirts blown off their back like a sail. Going to the temple?? Yabba delivery?

 

If they were really kids, like 14, 15, ok, but these guys are in their late teens or early twenties, and i can't help thinking at that age, back home, you start acting like an adult in public.

[BelgianBoy]

Zane !

 

 

 

Very good post and I did enjoy reading this at breakfast here and reminds me to many good memories !!!!

 

 

 

Cheers !