Rider on 650 cc bike and pillion passenger both dead after collision with drunk van driver

[Liverpool Lou]

1 minute ago, richard_smith237 said:

29 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

They must have been pretty old taxis!

 

Toyota Corollas and the few other popular makes used as taxis have been fitted with rear belts as standard for many years and, being a legal requirement, a taxi owner/co-operative would, obviously, have no reason to remove them .

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Actually not...

Actually, yes.

[richard_smith237]

5 minutes ago, giddyup said:

I was responding to your reply to my first post, ie But, not riding at night cuts out a huge amount of risk. Well so does not riding at all, get my drift?

valid point... 

 

That kind of fits the risk-profile I was mentioning.....   where risk can be balanced with convenience. 

 

I consider riding in the day time, only in the dry with a full face helmet and gear ( especially if going on a major road such as Bang-Na Trat or Vibhavadi rd ) to be well with my risk profile. 

 

I consider riding home from football at 8pm to be on the edge of my risk profile, as its already dark, but I’m close by and at 8pm there is not many drunk drivers around. 

 

I consider riding at 1am to be extremely risky because there are so many other riders and drivers on the roads who are drunk and thus will either drive myself (or wife) or take a taxi if I’ve been drinking. 

(Invariably any time I go out in the evening I take a GrabCar).

 

 

[SS1]

1 hour ago, Liverpool Lou said:

"...I'm in 100% control..."

only until the moment that you're not, same as every bike accident victim.

There are certainly some cases of freak accidents that cannot be avoided.. but observing those accident Facebook pages daily, I'd guess that 99% could be avoided by proper defensive riding. 

[richard_smith237]

10 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

37 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

They must have been pretty old taxis!

 

Toyota Corollas and the few other popular makes used as taxis have been fitted with rear belts as standard for many years and, being a legal requirement, a taxi owner/co-operative would, obviously, have no reason to remove them .

Actually not...  this is also in ’some’ newer taxis (i.e. within last 5 years etc). 

9 minutes ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Actually, yes.

You astonish me sometimes......   You’ll argue black is white. 

 

Now - the taxi’s I got out of because didn’t have functioning rear-seat belts (stalks) they were relatively new taxi’s - Toyota Altis (less than 5 years)....  this happened twice last week and has occurred numerous times over the past year - If I’m only popping down the road I won’t bother too much, if I’m going on a faster road I won’t take the taxi. 

 

The seat belt stalks are folded under the seats or the seats have been resurfaced and the vinyl covers the recess where the seatbelt receptacle sits. 

 

Why is this difficult for you to believe ???? its happened...  (on relatively new vehicles / taxis). 

 

[richard_smith237]

4 minutes ago, SS1 said:

There are certainly some cases of freak accidents that cannot be avoided.. but observing those accident Facebook pages daily, I'd guess that 99% could be avoided by proper defensive riding. 

I absolutely agree.... 

 

While a ‘freak accident’ is impossible to avoid, the difference between a car and a motorcycle in such circumstances is the protection we have in a car. 

 

 

Those of us who ride defensively, intelligently and are able to predict the unpredictability of what can unfold in-front to the side and behind us can ride and position ourselves in such a manner to avoid much of the risk we see others place themselves in. 

 

Riding defensively doesn’t mean pottering about at 40kmh as that has its own risks of being hit by other vehicles from behind etc..

 

 

I know a lad who got on his motorcycle the other night....   he was hammered. He’d already had a serious incident the year before (ICU for a night), that incident was the fault of the other car which hit him. But I wonder how much of it was though his own lack of defensiveness when riding while very drunk. 

 

 

 

[giddyup]

34 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

valid point... 

 

That kind of fits the risk-profile I was mentioning.....   where risk can be balanced with convenience. 

 

I consider riding in the day time, only in the dry with a full face helmet and gear ( especially if going on a major road such as Bang-Na Trat or Vibhavadi rd ) to be well with my risk profile. 

 

I consider riding home from football at 8pm to be on the edge of my risk profile, as its already dark, but I’m close by and at 8pm there is not many drunk drivers around. 

 

I consider riding at 1am to be extremely risky because there are so many other riders and drivers on the roads who are drunk and thus will either drive myself (or wife) or take a taxi if I’ve been drinking. 

(Invariably any time I go out in the evening I take a GrabCar).

 

 

So you might want to apologise for this comment....But to suggest someone has ‘more chance of avoiding a motorcycle accident if they don’t ride a motorcycle’ is moronically obvious....   I have less chance of slipping in the shower if I don’t shower !  No more "moronically obvious" than choosing not to ride at night. Your point lessens the risk somewhat, my point lessens the risk 100%.

Edited March 22, 2022 by giddyup

[digger70]

4 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

It would be more logical to demand 20 years jail for any drunk driver.

We will look in to that.  ????

[SS1]

3 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

Riding defensively doesn’t mean pottering about at 40kmh as that has its own risks of being hit by other vehicles from behind etc..

100% agreed. I find the safest way to ride here is "aggressive defensive"; always riding slightly faster than other traffic, owning your lane when possible, being dominant and always getting in front of traffic. 

[BangkokReady]

6 hours ago, 2 is 1 said:

Many country its the law! If you drink and drive its your fold dosent matter how accident happen! Definetly if you watch what insurance company going to pay and to who!

So if someone is drunk and they get rear ended or t-boned and it's totally not their fault, they get the blame regardless?

 

I guess that's one way to put people off driving drunk, but it still means that someone else is getting away with causing an accident.

[Will B Good]

On 3/21/2022 at 1:48 PM, biggles45 said:

Yes, you can't guard against stupidity. been hit twice on my bike, both times stationary turning right with indicators. Hit by Thais not paying attention. 

I see a lot of Thais pull-in to the left hand side, stop before making a right turn .......I think they have the right idea. 

 

[mancub]

If the rider had a similar dark shade of window tint on his visor, then maybe neither saw the other one !

[richard_smith237]

6 hours ago, giddyup said:

So you might want to apologise for this comment....But to suggest someone has ‘more chance of avoiding a motorcycle accident if they don’t ride a motorcycle’ is moronically obvious....   I have less chance of slipping in the shower if I don’t shower !  No more "moronically obvious" than choosing not to ride at night. Your point lessens the risk somewhat, my point lessens the risk 100%.

I apologise for any offence to your sensitivities... 

 

However, if your comment was not delivered out of flippancy, it appeared flippant...  just like posters in other threads who comment 'go home if you don’t like it’ ...  

 

There are many measures people can take to minimise their risk when riding a motorcycle (including many on the list I wrote earlier in the thread).... 

 

Choosing not to ride is of course one of those measures, but thats like suggesting the risk of drowning will be mitigated if I don’t swim !!!...  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[richard_smith237]

1 hour ago, mancub said:

If the rider had a similar dark shade of window tint on his visor, then maybe neither saw the other one !

Watching the video it would appear that the van driver simply didn’t see the motorcyclist.... perhaps due to the tint and the motorcyclist being far away (i.e. 100m or so ) when he looked and because he was drunk and didn’t look carefully or properly.....  

.... It would also appear that the motorcyclist was simply travelling too fast to make any counter manoeuvre. 

 

No one expects someone pulling out from a driveway etc to go straight into the second lane when they can simply pull into the first / left lane.

The motorcyclist perhaps saw the van pull out... But, in Thailand the last thing any driver seems to want to do is apply the brakes, it seems like a loss of face thing !!!! 

... so... the motorcyclist may have seen the van pull out, but instead of applying the brakes and slowing earlier, the motorcyclists simply assumed the van would remain in the left lane.

 

The motorcyclist was travelling too fast to react properly by the time he’d noticed the van was pulling into the second lane. 

 

 

Thats what it all appears like to me anyway.