Drivers simply don't care about safety

A short while later, when traffic was moving again, I was overtaken on the left by a young lady on a motorcycle. Her hair was flowing in the breeze due to the lack of a helmet. She swooped gaily by me and then swept across my front so smoothly with ne’er a care in the world and then overtook the car in front of me without checking to look at other vehicles approaching. It was total disregard for her own safety and obviously other riders’ and drivers’ safety. Within less than five seconds, I saw her motorcycle lying on the ground, wheels still spinning. She and another motorcyclist – also displaying disregard for others since he too was driving between lanes of vehicles, travelling in the opposite direction – had collided head on. I was pleased to see that neither of them was injured. Fortunately neither had been hit by oncoming cars.

So, what conclusion did I reach about these two incidents and the selfishness and disregard for safety? It is that Thailand has the road-death toll that it deserves.

Ultimately, despite the police and government talking about road safety and reducing the death toll over Songkran, people just do not care. On Sunday, several days before Songkran’s main celebration in Pattaya, I saw a tourist walking by the side of the road. A Songkran reveller aimed a container of water at him. He side-stepped the water and hit the side of a moving car. That is one tourist who will not be coming to Thailand again.

Bernard Walker

Pattaya