Roadbike Rant

[Hachi]

Apx 2:45pm today Sunday June 8th, through good luck or good management, just missed having a head on crash with two roadbikes heading towards me.

They were on the wrong side of the road, riding way too fast. In fact the lead idiot coming towards me was about on the WHITE LINE on the road shoulder.

My white line. That is, on my extreme left of the road where the bitumen ends and the dirt begins.

On a sharp apex of a corner of the road.

His mate roaring up close behind him wasn't that far behind, and on much the same trajectory.

I was heading along the road towards the lookout/rotunda thing up the hill away from Samoeng, towards Mae Sa/Mae Rim. This idiot and his idiot mate were heading towards Samoeng.

I was on my Honda Phantom with the missus the pillion passenger.

I veered ONTO the white line, lead idiot adjusted slightly and missed us by THAT much. His mate much the same.

A couple of slower - that is, smarter & thinking - riders on similar road rockets were a little way behind these lead two, on THEIR own side of the road.

If these were indeed farangs I would hope they slow down to allow others - let alone themselves, time to live a little longer.

If these idiots have a death wish, take it somewhere else, off public roads.

Rant over.

[Rasseru]

If these were indeed farangs I would hope they slow down to allow others - let alone themselves, time to live a little longer.

A harrowing experience, to be sure. Why do you say 'if these were indeed farangs'? Nothing else in your story suggests they were. And why limit your hope that they slow down only to the case where they were farangs? Would it not be sensible to hope they slow down whoever they were?

Edited June 8, 2008 by Rasseru

[amexpat]

If we are going to start reporting and ranting about idiocy on the road, TV is going to need a lot more storage space.

[Hachi]

Yep - didn't mean to differentiate between farangs and say, Thais or Lao or Hmong or the Karen or other ethnic groups that may be blasting up in the hills in groups on their big road bikes on the wrong side of the road.

My post was more of a "heads up" warning for anyone else riding about that area on their own motorcycles, and yes I do, along with probably everybody else on here, every day have numerous close calls driving/riding on the roads.

But that incident by far was the closest yet to the final act due to the severity of the oncoming rider's combined speed & idiocy.

I had & have no intention of taking up your valuable bandwidth with anymore near miss road stories.

In future perhaps I should just continue to only read all the learned usual thaivisa postings which don't take up the valuable bandwith such as the best hamburger shop or where to buy an electronic item in Chiang Mai or where to fix a flat tyre.

It seems the regulars don't want many "newbies" taking over their hallowed cyberspace on the CM forum . Far be it from me, with 26 years in SE Asia & 6 of them in Thailand, to intrude with my petty postings eh?