I've seen this argument in other papers. However, in my opinion, that is not the real problem in Chalong & Rawai. I live in Chalong and very near where this incident occurred. My observation the other day was that the tourists behaving very badly on the motorbikes is the problem here. These tourist motorbike drivers are arrogant and self-centered, don't know how to ride a bike, don't observe the natural traffic flow, ignore the safety of other drivers, just bad driving and big bike speeding. They feel like they can do whatever they want because they are in Thailand and on holiday, a very bad attitude.
Now, this may sound strange, but we know that the Thais drive terribly. However, they drive in a flow and are aware of the surroundings. A few are really terrible, but not as terrible as the tourist here in Chalong. My guess, and it is a guess, but I see it every day, is that these guys didn't like sitting in the traffic there by the police station and decided to drive very fast in the oncoming lane. This happened in front of the police station, not the traffic circle where they give the traffic tickets. There is no way you can speed around the traffic circle.
What happened after that is not good, but if the police could just get a handle on these cowboy motorbike drivers life in Chalong would be much better.