crash

Thai driving is mad. As I've discussed before, Thai drivers, especially those on motorbikes (who seem to the the large majority) weave in and out of traffic, drive on the wrong side of the road, blow red lights, and generally behave as though there were no one else on the street. Generally, it works out. In my experience, it often seems to be a more efficient driving style. If every one of the katrillion motorbikers in Surat followed the rules of the road and behaved the way cars are expected to (stay in your lane, don't weave to the front of the line at a traffic light, don't drive on the sidewalk...) traffic would be nightmarish and no one would get anywhere. The roads just aren't big enough for it. So to some extent, I get it.

But there's no avoiding the obvious fact: motorbiking here is really dangerous. It's liberating and relaxing and fantastically fun, but it's really dangerous. You're probably going to crash at some point. You need a helmet.

But Thai people, apparently fifty-three percent of those who regularly drive motorbikes, don't wear helmets. Anecdotally, it seems to be at least that high. Considering that many people only put one on when they see a cop, or ride around with the chinstrap unbuckled (rendering the helmet entirely useless in preventing anything but a fine), the number of people who are effectively without a helmet must be much higher. This is why Thailand has the world's worst motorbike fatality rate, with eleven thousand people dying annually because they didn't want to mess up their hair (or whatever-no excuse is a good one).

The worst is the kids. Fine, you're an adult, do you thing, but your seven-year-old needs a helmet. End of story. But it's actually pretty rare to see kids wearing them. Pretty much daily, I see passengers holding entirely unprotected infants on the back of the bike, or a parent in a helmet (presumably only to avoid a ticket) ferrying two or three kids on the back without a helmet between them. It makes me shudder to think of what could happen if they hit a bump.

It's not only helmets, either. Thailand seems to have a general lack of concern for safety. You'll see ten people in the back of a speeding pickup truck, one seated on the rusted and precariously attached tailgate. Boats shuttling tourists around and between the islands will brave absurd waves, and occasionally you hear a story with a tragic, rocky ending. Children crawl around the front seat of the car or ride on the driver's lap.

People more intimately acquainted with Thai culture have told me that this cavalier attitude towards danger in rooted in some fundamental elements of the national character. Thai people are generally, about all things, very relaxed. They just don't worry about possible negative outcomes the way most Westerners do. One expat, here for a decade and married to a Thai woman, told me that they tend not to think in terms of cause and effect; if you crash your bike while not wearing a helmet and get a concussion, they will tend not to blame the concussion on the lack of a helmet. Since you couldn't have forseen the accident, they assume you couldn't have prepared for it, so there was nothing you could have done to avoid the injury. It was out of your hands.

That's another piece of the Thai psyche: superstition. You don't need a helmet, or a seatbelt, or to not get on that old wooden boat in a storm, because you won't die until it's your time to die. When it's your time, there's nothing you can do anyway, so why worry. They hop on the bike and trust the universe to do the job of a helmet. 

While I admire the Thai stress-free attitude towards life and embrace it in matters of work and play, I can't get on board with this one. Seeing my five-year-old students roll up to the school on the back of a motorbike, their tiny heads unprotected, makes it hard to smile at their parents. The universe won't help you out here. Put on a helmet.

Stats source

moto

My motorbike, like that of every foreign teacher I know, is secondhand. Realistically, it's probably more like fifthhand, but it's impossible to say. The origin, age, and previous ownership of these bike is mysterious, at least to those of us who can't read the paperwork. The condition upon purchase is what you see; if you don't notice some grave problem in the course of the round-the-block test run they allow you, then it becomes your grave problem.

A secondhand dealer requires two things: your money and a signature. Not necessarily your own signature, either; registering a bike to a foreigner cost twice the registration for a Thai person, so it's best to bring a local friend. Hand over your cash, and the bike is yours (well, it's your friend's). They don't try to sell you a helmet, they don't ask to see a license, they don't brief you on the Thai rules of the road (as if there were any), they don't ask if you've ever driven a motorcycle or if you have the foggiest idea what you're doing on one. Just the cash please.

So we blunder through our experience with this unfamiliar form of transportation. I don't know what type of gas I need, so I assume the attendant got it right. I'm not sure if that noise is normal, so I do my best with Google and crossed fingers.

My current problem is a common one, at least for my rickedy Honda. The thing dies if I let it idle too long. It starts doing this every few weeks, and the fix is simple and cheap. Thing is, I don't have the faintest idea how to express that to a mechanic. So I can't bring it in until the problem gets very, very bad. Several times I've gone to the shop and sat there, the mechanic's ear to bike, waiting for it to die. Of course, like any piece of machinery under the eye of a hired expert, it chooses this moment to behave perfectly. He shrugs, and I'm defeated. I leave after a brief, awkward thanks. I'll be back in two weeks when it starts reliably dying at every stoplight.