At the traffic lights entering Buriram.  Nice picture of a Thai family on a day out. 

 

 

On 6/22/2021 at 12:50 PM, nahkit said:

 

Poor?  I've been married to the same Thai lady for over 30 years and my wife owns 4 houses, two "lock-up" stalls in a clothes market along with numerous pieces of land, all paid for by me. If I were to die tomorrow she would be anything but poor.

 

Love ones distressed?  We all have to die sometime, I'm sure my grown-up children could handle it.

 

Its not just about you?  I've spent the best part of fourty years working to provide for my family, its about time they learnt to look after themselves and that I started to do the things that make me happy.

 

"It's my life
And it's now or never
I ain't gonna live forever
I just want to live while I'm alive"

 

Bon Jovi

so you wont be getting the vaccines then ?

On 6/21/2021 at 11:40 PM, OneMoreFarang said:

About the speed in Bangkok. Often it is slow, but it is obviously also not difficult to accelerate to over 100km/h for mostly only a few seconds or maybe a minute at a time.

Here is a picture from my bike which shows an average speed of 25km/h - over 7000km. 

Maybe 2,000 of those km were roads outside the city with maybe an average of 80km/h (my guess).

That means in reality my average speed in the middle of Bangkok is probably more like 20km/h. And the reason is not that I don't try to ride faster when it's possible. With in average 20km/h the rate of accidents with bad head injuries it probably not so high (my guess).

I don't write this to suggest people should not use helmets. They should use helmet! But to put things into perspective.

 

here a thing that i try and get the students to try

ask them to stand and slowly bang their head on the wall

Then ask them to bang it harder

Now ask them to run at the wall with your head

Guess which one they wont do ?

they look at me daft when i try to explain that if you think it hurts too much when moving at 2 or 3 kph, try and imaging what it would feel like hitting your head at 30kph, and then imagine what it would do to your head at 60-80 kph, no pain, but no head either 

They look again, then get on their bikes with no helmets 

Crazy !!

Troll post reported and removed.

9 hours ago, Joinaman said:

here a thing that i try and get the students to try

ask them to stand and slowly bang their head on the wall

Then ask them to bang it harder

Now ask them to run at the wall with your head

Guess which one they wont do ?

they look at me daft when i try to explain that if you think it hurts too much when moving at 2 or 3 kph, try and imaging what it would feel like hitting your head at 30kph, and then imagine what it would do to your head at 60-80 kph, no pain, but no head either 

They look again, then get on their bikes with no helmets 

Crazy !!

You have a point.

But, in real life, how many accidents end with a head (with or without helmet) against a wall? I think that doesn't happen too often.

 

And apart from that many young people have this feeling that they are invincible. How do I know? There was a time when I was young and I also did some stunts which, especially in the hindsight, could have gone very wrong.

2 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

And apart from that many young people have this feeling that they are invincible.

 

All caused by their Buddhist beliefs. Wear a Buddha amulet and you're invincible. Mom takes son to the temple and gets a monk to spit beer in the sons face and chant a few blessings should also make him indestructible.

9 minutes ago, IvorBiggun2 said:

All caused by their Buddhist beliefs. Wear a Buddha amulet and you're invincible. Mom takes son to the temple and gets a monk to spit beer in the sons face and chant a few blessings should also make him indestructible.

Lots of teenagers all over the world think they are invincible. Not only people with religion x or y.

17 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Lots of teenagers all over the world think they are invincible. Not only people with religion x or y.

 Fair reply.

A little story about Thai beliefs. 

My BiL dealt in amulets and, to cut a long story short, came around my house to prove if the amulet he'd acquired was real or fake. In those days my wife kept a gun and he wanted to put the amulet around a chickens neck and shoot the chicken. The amulet, if real, will prevent the gun from firing proving it to be genuine/real.

Due to his belief that if you kill an animal you can only do so if you then eat it. Not wanting to do that he decided to place the amulet on a sand pile and shoot directly at it at pointblank range.

The gun fired blasting the amulet into a thousand pieces. The BiL just about turned and said to the wife 'I knew it was fake' and walked off.

56 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

You have a point.

But, in real life, how many accidents end with a head (with or without helmet) against a wall? I think that doesn't happen too often.

 

And apart from that many young people have this feeling that they are invincible. How do I know? There was a time when I was young and I also did some stunts which, especially in the hindsight, could have gone very wrong.

If "wall" can be assigned as a car or truck = a significant amount....

Much of the damage to cars is caused by the motorcyclists body.....

Wall could also be defined as the pavement, (even a dirt road) - which remains undefeated.....

2 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

But, in real life, how many accidents end with a head (with or without helmet) against a wall? I think that doesn't happen too often.

 

Substitute a car, truck, road, barrier, lamppost, etc for a wall then you just might get the picture.

 

How many walls do you see on the race track in a Moto GP race? Yet all riders wear helmets.

1 hour ago, pgrahmm said:

If "wall" can be assigned as a car or truck = a significant amount....

Much of the damage to cars is caused by the motorcyclists body.....

Wall could also be defined as the pavement, (even a dirt road) - which remains undefeated.....

It worries me that you have had to explain this. Why not not let people enjoy their ignorance? Ignorance is bliss, after all.????

Yeah, along time ago I used to be 20, and immortal. And rode my Honda CB750 at 80 or 90mph just about everywhere, in the days before police had much in the way of radar.

Now that I know I'm actually mortal, I tend to pay more attention to facts, logic and risk. A survey done by the charity I worked with more than a decade ago showed that many, if not most, of the disabled people living north of Chiang Mai are disabled because they were in a motorcycle crash, and many of those are disabled because of head injuries, and they're mostly hidden away – there are many tragic lives that we just don't see here.  Another interesting fact: most accidents happen close to home. 

For me, it's a no-brainer. Well, it could be. And I'm not telling you what to do – just don't expect me as a taxpayer to pay for the treatment of your injuries if you're in a m/c accident and you're not wearing a helmet. But as taxpayers aren't going to pay for your medical treatment in Thailand anyway, I'm cool with that.