7 minutes ago, Confuscious said:

A few months ago, the police was giving out free helmets for these poor farmers.

The helmets were sold before the farmers got home...

Yes, so they could buy food at the market that night.

58 minutes ago, FruitPudding said:

 

Can they not afford helmets?

 

How about an adult driver??

I see kids driving their parents as pillion.

3 hours ago, mfd101 said:

how are you supposed to get around

With a helmet and adult?

2 minutes ago, Srikcir said:

With a helmet and adult?

Not enough helmets. And too many children.

3 hours ago, KannikaP said:

What's your Dad's job got to do with it?

 

He was too busy mining to go shopping.  🤷‍♂️

3 hours ago, mfd101 said:

Obvious question: When a motorcycle is the best anyone (but not everyone) can afford, how are you supposed to get around?

 

Parent uses the motorcycle to get to the shops.  Kids stay at home or walk.

3 hours ago, mfd101 said:

Living as I do in the countryside full of poor people, my question was intended to point out the practicalities of life amongst the poor rather than the theory of superior people who wouldn't dream of doing anything so silly.

My school in UK must have been at least two miles from my house and we never had a motorcycle, or for many years a bicycle even. I used to walk there and back every schoolday in whatever weather the British climate threw at me. If we had had a motorbike, no way would my parents have allowed me to ride it to school. My mother wouldn't even let me buy one at age sixteen because she was worried about me.

In the slums of Liverpool, we were equally as poor as the country people here.

3 hours ago, mfd101 said:

Mostly on back-country roads. Rare on main roads.

 

Obvious question: When a motorcycle is the best anyone (but not everyone) can afford, how are you supposed to get around?

How did they get around before scooters arrived on the scene........?  🤔

21 minutes ago, jesimps said:

In the slums of Liverpool, we were equally as poor as the country people here.

Poverty in the slums of Liverpool is not quite the same as life in a rural village of say 5000 people living in houses that look to a Westerner that they would house, say, 500 or 1000.

20 minutes ago, transam said:

How did they get around before scooters arrived on the scene........?  🤔

That's like asking: What did you and I do before the Internet was invented?

 

Of course they walked. Or they didn't go to school at all. My b/f was constantly being dragged out of the village school to take 100 head of buffalo up to the hills for feeding. He learned more up there than he ever did in school - like, not to assemble a pile of Khmer Rouge mortar shells and set fire to them, the explosion of which brought the Thai Army running. ... When he wasn't doing that he was leading his 5 older full-blood sisters & brothers out of school to go swimming in the big lake that had just swallowed up 9/10s of their father's farm ...

 

A different world. No point in judging it by our smug standards and logic.

3 hours ago, mfd101 said:

Often no. If there is one, it'll be 1-only for the family.

 

And if Dad is driving (with Mum and 3 kids on board) Dad will be wearing the helmet (if anyone is).

 

If you can afford a motorbike you can afford helmets.

4 minutes ago, mfd101 said:

That's like asking: What did you and I do before the Internet was invented?

 

Of course they walked. Or they didn't go to school at all. My b/f was constantly being dragged out of the village school to take 100 head of buffalo up to the hills for feeding. He learned more up there than he ever did in school - like, not to assemble a pile of Khmer Rouge mortar shells and set fire to them, the explosion of which brought the Thai Army running. ... When he wasn't doing that he was leading his 5 older full-blood sisters & brothers out of school to go swimming in the big lake that had just swallowed up 9/10s of their father's farm ...

 

A different world. No point in judging it by our smug standards and logic.

Smug, don't be silly, I asked what did they do before scooters, simple question, even for you...

There is even an age to be able to ride a scooter here, most are under that age, but you think it's OK for them to go out and get killed on them.......

 

And you have the front to question my logic......🤣

 

2 hours ago, Confuscious said:

Agree with you, but the biggest deal is to continue your life after you have seen a kid's brain plastered on the road by the car you were driving.

 

Thankfully, I haven't seen that.

27 minutes ago, transam said:

There is even an age to be able to ride a scooter here, most are under that age, but you think it's OK for them to go out and get killed on them.......

 

And you have the front to question my logic....

I'm not necessarily saying it's OK, just how it is. And change comes slowly to people who have no money & no education.

1 hour ago, FruitPudding said:

 

Thankfully, I haven't seen that.

In the early '70s, I saw an accident happening where the car in front of me slipped and went off the road.

Stopped and went to look if I could help.

The driver was still sitting behind the wheel but his head was missing (was before belts was required).

Now, almost 50 years later I can still see the headless driver in my dreams.

6 hours ago, Vandk said:

I have seen the same 5 children including one little dog in the arms of the second girlchild.

Then it can not be same, as the picture only show boys.

8 hours ago, mfd101 said:

Mostly on back-country roads. Rare on main roads.

 

Obvious question: When a motorcycle is the best anyone (but not everyone) can afford, how are you supposed to get around?

When I was that age, I had a bicycle.

My brother and sister, each had one, too.

That's how we got around.

8 hours ago, mfd101 said:

practicalities of life amongst the poor

I don't call people poor who own a motorcycle.

20 years ago, rural Thais who owned a motorcycle were considered well-off.

Even at that time,  most rural Thais were not poor.

You want to see poverty? Go to Cambodia,  Laos, Philippines. Or Brazil...

 

8 hours ago, biggles45 said:

"Mostly on back-country roads. Rare on main roads." 

Really, Stand outside the school on Soi Arunothai at 4p when the BIB hold up traffic for the 2 and 3 up unhelmeted, unlicensed kids ride out. This school has 500+ kids

 

 

When you posted that, did you honestly expect that all or most readers know where the "Soi Arunothai" you are talking about is located?

 

7 hours ago, mfd101 said:

As to push bikes, they are relatively rare. Mostly when I do see one it's being ridden by an old man staggering along a rural road.  If there were a bicycle available for the kids, there would be - as with helmets - only one for the whole family.

It is true, that in rural Surin only old men or women staggering along a rural road will be seen using a bicycle.

 

It is not true, that there are no bicycles available, or only one per household.

Plenty of unused old bicycles, no maintenance, rusting in the backyards.

It's just that nobody wants them - bicycles are too cheap.

A new bicycle costs 1 tenth or 1 twentieth of a new motorcycle, so, obviously, nobody wants a bicycle.  Adults want a pickup, motorcycle for the kids.

I am talking of "poor" villages in rural Surin.

5 hours ago, transam said:

How did they get around before scooters arrived on the scene........?  🤔

They didn't get around,  they were pretty much stuck in their village. 

 

Motorcycles changed rural society. Now you were able to take your gf on your bike (ie only you  and her) to the village fair in the next village. 

The interesting part was not the party or the neighboring village, the interesting part was between the 2 villages. 

 

Motorcycles played a big role in the change of Thai sexual values during the last 40 years.  They gave people freedom.

 

Is the policeman wearing the helmet laughing ?  I notice there are no police present when the kids leave school and jump on motorbikes and head for home.  Ooops ! sorry I forgot that teenagers wearing black berets and dark green overalls control the traffic as the riders leave , five on a m/c and the 'driver' holding a drink in one hand !!! Who cares ?..... little will change, so the chances of controlling electric bike riders is vertually nil !!! TIT.

19 hours ago, mfd101 said:

When a motorcycle is the best anyone (but not everyone) can afford, how are you supposed to get around?

 

it doesn't look like any of those kids on the motorcycle are even old enough to ride. so they should be getting around on bicycles.

10 hours ago, Lorry said:

They didn't get around,  they were pretty much stuck in their village. 

 

Motorcycles changed rural society. Now you were able to take your gf on your bike (ie only you  and her) to the village fair in the next village. 

The interesting part was not the party or the neighboring village, the interesting part was between the 2 villages. 

 

Motorcycles played a big role in the change of Thai sexual values during the last 40 years.  They gave people freedom.

 

That's strange, my Thai wife says all here siblings walked to school, that's how it is/was. 🤔

 

But, you are OK with underage kids getting killed on motorised vehicles to save them walking....?  yes or no....🙄

6 minutes ago, transam said:

That's strange, my Thai wife says all here siblings walked to school, that's how it is/was. 🤔

 

But, you are OK with underage kids getting killed on motorised vehicles to save them walking....?  yes or no....🙄

Please, take a course in Reading and Comprehension.

6 minutes ago, Lorry said:

Please, take a course in Reading and Comprehension.

So you cannot answer my question.........🤨

19 hours ago, BobBKK said:

 If I had a wife who looked like that, I wouldn't have nine kids, that's for sure.

Who is the wife? The one with the glasses?

12 hours ago, Lorry said:

 

A new bicycle costs 1 tenth or 1 twentieth of a new motorcycle, so, obviously, nobody wants a bicycle.  Adults want a pickup, motorcycle for the kids.

I am talking of "poor" villages in rural Surin.

 

Correct. If you want to see "poor" go to VN. Not putting down another Asian country, just pointing out the fact. We are not talking about villages here, but in big cities, say HCMC, it's still pretty much a 2-wheeler society. For passing the time, you can try to count the number of 4-wheel vehicles passing by on the road. The quotient would be somehting like 10 to 1, or maybe 2.

At the school of my kid in Korat, I saw kids driving to school with big cars and motorbikes.
Amongst them was a Ducati and a Nissan Z.
Not exactly "poor" people.
The school was accepting this because their parents had made a big "Donation" to the school.
Amazingly, these students were every year in the Top-5 best results.
TIT

21 hours ago, Confuscious said:

Agree with you, but the biggest deal is to continue your life after you have seen a kid's brain plastered on the road by the car you were driving.

The ''biggest deal'' is you being upset?