Road Accidents Disable 5,000 People Per Year

[Fore Man]

I wonder about the statistics that were quoted...mentioning that the majority of road deaths were on straight highway sections. Has anyone ever driven on mountain highways in the north of the Kingdom...especially on holiday periods...when manic drivers hel_l-bent to beat the next guy will overtake vehicles on blind curves? There could be a bus coming around that curve or there could be nothing, but most male Thai drivers will think nothing of taking the chance...as if it is their destiny to arrive back in their lane without incident. Defensive driving concepts are totally alien to them....it is all karma and testosterone. I shudder every time I see this act of total stupidity and hope like hel_ that my family is not a victim in the making, as we would have no time to react and nowhere to go but off the road or in a nasty accident caused by a moronic Thai driver. We make sure that there is plenty of space available between us and the next car and drive slower than others...letting the mad devils go around us.

A Thai university student attending studies in Oz was home on vacation and explained to me that 90 percent of Thai male drivers have a 'me first' mentality out on the roads; add booze and their inbred fatalism and you then have a highly lethal combination. Moreover, he mentioned that unlike western countries, driving in Thailand and elsewhere in Southeast Asia is based on merging, rather than right-of-way rules as we know them. He or she who has 1-cm of lead therefor has the 'right of way' and the car perceived to be in trail must give way or suffer the consequences. A final observation: some of the worse driving I've seen in Thailand was committed by farang drivers--men and women alike--perhaps deciding that their ego has taken enough of a bashing by Thai drivers who who now can afford a vehicle but will never have the brains to safely operate it.

Please be careful out there folks and don't add to the ugly statistics--however accurate or inaccurate they might be.