Today they had a test on some basic verbs that we have learnt over the last few weeks and the 3 different forms. After I arrived at the class I enquired to where 2 missing students were and I was told in Thai that one had been involved in an accident on Saturday evening.
Now the young girl who was involved is a girl you can really like and at other times loathe in some ways. She’s fantastic as she has a personality and so many young Thai kids really lack this quality. She has a booming voice that can be very irritating at times but she does bring a lot to the class and often makes me laugh with some of the oddball answers she comes out with sometimes. This is great though as so many students are scared shi*less to say a word and you can hardly get a peep out of them. If you direct a question or god forbid ask them to read something, they go stoned face and start turning white like a Caucasian.
Miss AnnAnn is good as she isn’t scared about being wrong like many other Thai kids and I give her more marks for being brave enough to do this even when some of the answers are somewhere from left field so far away I don’t even know how they got into her head and out of her mouth. I would trade all my kids who hardly say a word for the year and just sit in their seats bug eyed and hoping that you don’t ask them to say or do anything.
Ann's friends
More friends
Fowers and cake and biscuits from local market
Anyway, Ann was riding her bike on Saturday evening and wanted to turn right into a street and when doing so was hit by a motorcycle rider. After speaking to her mother it sounds to me it was Ann’s fault. She made a mistake and didn’t see or misjudged the speed of the motorbike and it crashed into her hard and fast.
She had 3 stitches in the back of her head just above the base of her skull and also a bit of bleeding from the wound and this was an original concern from the doctor as head injuries are so dangerous and can change so quickly and for the worse.
She has skin off both her hands on the knuckles and also off one arm and elbow, off her right knee and ankle area and also on her back. She also has a little off the right side of her head in the temple area. All up she was very lucky and has come out of it very well with only minor injuries all that can mend and heal with time.
The thing here in Thailand is many of these accidents can be avoided. How you ask? Well that’s easy. The police need to enforce the Thai laws that are actually written into the law. But this will not happen as Thai traffic police receive a percentage of tickets they write and if they actually enforced the law strictly and came down on all the illegal activities that take place thousands upon thousands of times each day here in Ubon the Isaan capital in the Noth East of Thailand. They would be doing themselves out of all that retirement money.
Police need to enforce 2 people to a motorbike rule, helmet laws, license laws, registration laws, speed laws, drink driving laws, failing to use indicator laws and on and on.
The most important of these is the license, helmet and more than 2 people on a motorbike laws. These I believe would drastically reduce Thai road deaths especially of young Thai people.
I remember when I was young and the stupid things I did behind a wheel of a car, drink driving, showing off to friends, speeding and the list went on. In Australia the dangers of me being involved or causing a terrible accident compared to Thailand on a scale 1-10 is about a 3 for Australia and a 10 for Thailand.
In Australia at least most young drivers do have to have a little bit of experience on a road before obtaining a license. There are very strict road rules and also it is very hard to bribe your way out of a ticket there.
In Thailand too many kids don’t have road experience, meaning they don’t have the life experience we have. When you have driven on roads for 20 odd plus years you have an experience that you cannot teach to young kids. You can tell them this knowledge but if they listen and take it on board and actually implement it is another thing. I can see so many things happening around, behind and in front of me. You see a car that is going to turn and it isn’t indicating, you see a car coming from a side street that isn’t going to give way, you see the car coming at a hundred miles an hour in the rear vision mirror and move well over to the side of the road, you look in you mirror and also glance quickly over your shoulder when changing lanes and so on.
Young Thai kids don’t have this ability. They don’t have this vision and I didn’t when I was younger as well but here in Thailand the risks are so much greater. There is danger just riding from your home to the local shop as anything can and will happen here with the way kids ride their motorbikes and people drive their cars.
On Wednesday last week it had rained just before I left for school. Now here in Ubon the roads do get busy from 7:30 am until 8:15 am when students are taken and dropped off to school. 2 intersections before my school the traffic banks up often and is usually controlled by a policeman. I was going along slowly this morning as road was wet and slippery and as usual many young students in uniforms who wouldn’t of had licenses whizzed past me. I could see the cars ahead of me stopped about 300 metres ahead and started to slow down. A young girl from Nari Nakun a local school went flying past me with another friend sitting side saddle on the back of the motorbike. Sure enough she was going to fast and came up on the stationary cars too quickly and had to take evasive action or she would have plowed straight into the back of a car. She locked the back brake up and steered left and somehow she missed the back of the car and luckily there wasn’t a car in the left lane at the time as she fish tailed the bike into that lane and it has thrown the girl from the back of the bike flat onto her face. The girl hit the ground and bounced a few times and skidded a short distance. She quickly picked herself up and her friend who had stalled the bike tried to restart it. She didn’t seem to have any blood coming from anywhere and only her uniform was dirty.
This could have been avoided if the girl who would have been maybe 14 or 15 riding the bike had a little more experience. But it could have been avoided totally as I am 100% sure she wouldn’t have had a license and should not be riding a motorbike in the first place. You can get a license at 15 for a motorbike but the bike has to be 99cc or under and most the motorbikes are 100-125cc motorbikes.
As for not wearing helmets I cannot understand for the life of me why they don’t enforce this law strictly. Do this for everyday for every month for the whole year. Enforce it and see what happens. I am sure it would have to save one or two lives and this would be great even if it was only such a small number of people. I know Thai people don’t seem to value life and you can see this when they operate a vehicle on the road. No value for their own life and even worse for other people’s lives. When the police write a ticket for this offence the people pay the fine there and then and hop back onto their motorbike and off you go.
In Australia you would be footing it until you bought a helmet or went a got one from your house. Same for no license it’s simply pay the fine then hop onto the bike again and off you go.
I know the logistics of enforcing this is probably impossible and why would the police cut off the arm that feeds their fat little bellies. What are a few dead people when there is a mountain of money to be made in bonuses and bribes? Again life is cheap here in Thailand but it could improve so much with some insight from a serious government that actually cares about its people and wants to have a safe and corruption free country.
These are only dreams that I have thought about and I don’t think I would see in my lifetime here in Thailand.
Brunty.
3 comments:
Very true; kids are not the best drivers.
But that seems to hold true most places.
PM me on my blog about my pending visit to Issaan and/or email me your email address and we can converse.
It's a shame and especially so when this could have been prevented with a bit of instruction and education.
The kids seem to learn how to drive by mimicing the older people they observe driving. These people, though, started driving when there weren't so many vehicles on the road and their actions weren't so dangerous. Now the roads are crowded and those same ways of driving cause injuries and death.
We do have the same problems in our homelands but it's not so extensive and there is some parental support and guidance for safe driving techniques and rules of the road. It seems here they are taught how to operate the vehicle but not how to drive and interact safely in traffic.
I believe they could enforce laws for the next century and not run out of "fine prey". There are the excessive speeders on Chayangkul Rd, illegal double parking, illegal turns, failure to yield right of way, failure to stop at red lights (the people turning right onto the road in front of Techno have to wait for all the drivers going straight running the red light), and if you notice at red lights there is a sign that states, "failure to stop behind this line when the light is red will result in a 1000 Baht fine". In actuality I think the police department has a golden opportunity to have amongst the best facilities, vehicles and salaries for a long time to come. The other benefit would be fewer funerals and fewer visits to hospitals.
Accidents here can be pretty horrible, your student is really lucky! What happened to the other guy/gal on the mbike that hit her? I'll link to this post with some of my other driving in Thailand posts. Good post!
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