Was Nearly Killed At Zebra Crossing Today !

[TAWP]

As long as your vehicle can still move, it's not really an accident scene.

Haha, as horrible as your comment was, I laughed.

[ignoramus]

I avoid pedestraian crossings like the plague. They are like a magnet, oddly. Why would one trust drivers with one's safety? I use my wits, hearing and eyes. Works a treat.

[MrJohnson]

zebra crossings - purely ornamental

[mauGR1]

zebra crossings - purely ornamental

True,the zebra crossings had failed their original mission.

As a nice ornament for a busy road in a modern city,they could be accompanied with some leopard crossing,if i may humbly suggest to the powers-that-be.

[SeanMoran]

I have a confession to make on this.

I decided on an early dinner tonight since I hadn't had breakfast and was feeling hungry, so I left to go get a feed at around 5pm rather than the usual 6pm. The restaurant I frequent is only half a kay from this hotel, but there's a median strip along Sukhumvit in Ban Chang, so it requires motorcycling up the road westward for around 5 or 600 metres to make a U-turn and back down past the hotel to the lights.

If anyone saw a bloke in an orange t-shirt on a red Honda almost clean-up himself along with a pedestrian crossing at the crosswalk from Tesco-Lotus in Ban Chang at around ten past five this afternoon, or heard the squeal of the locked-up back tyre rubbing itself down the tarmac, I was on the Honda.

There's usually a traffic warden at that crossing at around 6pm when I usually go for dinner, and everyone is learning to drive courteously and stop for pedestrians at the crossing. Today at just after 5pm, I rode past and noticed no warden and there's trucks behind me so I kept up the pace to the U-turn, and rode back at the usual 100-120km/h to avoid getting knocked off by obnoxious Mercedes drivers, and just as I passed a parked truck in the centre lane, I caught a glimpse of her.

A middle-aged woman, dressed in a shirt of white and light brown, but not striped, that blended her into the background scenery like desert camoflague, and she was walking on a trajectory that would have seen me collide with her in around 3.6 seconds (if you divide 60 minutes x 60 seconds = 3600 by 1,000 and consider how fast a motorbike travels 100 metres at 100km/h it's 3.6 seconds) so I tapped on the rear brake rather harshly, and steered a course to the left to pass her on the side she was walking FROM if she continued across the crosswalk, and locked up the back wheel in the process, but keptthe Honda steady. NEVER touch the front brake lever of a motorbike at high speed if you're not in a 100% straight line on dry roads.

Then the lady stopped walking and stared at me, with the squeal of that back tyre doing it's utmost in the attention-seeking department when all I wanted was to slow down and get around her.

My right arm smacked the bag on her shoulder, but just enough to feel it for the next five or ten minutes for me. I pulled over immediately and turned around to see her waiting on the median strip to cross the crosswalk after the passing traffic had gone on, saw that she never felt the impact that my arm felt in lightly brushing that bag on her shoulder at around 70km/h at that stage, waied as best I could from the seat of a bike, and took myself to dinner.

Clearly, I was in the wrong, technically. Bloody lucky that I managed to get around her or we'd both probably have ended up in hospital.

If you're walking across a crosswalk then beware of speeding cars, trucks and motorbikes, and if you're riding a motorbike through crosswalks beware of slow-moving lone pedestrians in camouflague gear with large shoulder bags.

[Soutpeel]

zebra crossings - purely ornamental

Of course, how many zebra's have you actually ever seen trying to cross a road in BKK, and lets take this one step further as regards Thai drivers not stopping a Zebra crossings, by Thai logic the fact they are called Zebra crossing means that they only need to stop when a zebra is crossing, not for pedestrians...

I with Panda crossing idea myself

[Soutpeel]

If you're walking across a crosswalk then beware of speeding cars, trucks and motorbikes, and if you're riding a motorbike through crosswalks beware of slow-moving lone pedestrians in camouflague gear with large shoulder bags.

And maybe you should slow down on that part of Sukhumvit... .....100-120km

[SeanMoran]

If you're walking across a crosswalk then beware of speeding cars, trucks and motorbikes, and if you're riding a motorbike through crosswalks beware of slow-moving lone pedestrians in camouflague gear with large shoulder bags.

And maybe you should slow down on that part of Sukhumvit... .....100-120km

I would truly like to keep the pace down through that part of the city, but I know I'll get wiped out by some madman in a Merc or a Honda Integra or something, so the only way to avoid that is to go quick so they don't catch up. I can hear them racing by the hotel outside my window right now. Totally insane speeds through a built up area, but for motorbikes to slow down is to invite these speed freaks to run over us just for entertainment.

[Soutpeel]

If you're walking across a crosswalk then beware of speeding cars, trucks and motorbikes, and if you're riding a motorbike through crosswalks beware of slow-moving lone pedestrians in camouflague gear with large shoulder bags.

And maybe you should slow down on that part of Sukhumvit... .....100-120km

I would truly like to keep the pace down through that part of the city, but I know I'll get wiped out by some madman in a Merc or a Honda Integra or something, so the only way to avoid that is to go quick so they don't catch up. I can hear them racing by the hotel outside my window right now. Totally insane speeds through a built up area, but for motorbikes to slow down is to invite these speed freaks to run over us just for entertainment.

Mate, think we are exaggerating some what.. ....Been living in the area for nearly 8 years and its not nearly as bad as you are making out, Ban Chang/Sukhumvit are pretty well behaved as regards driving in comparision with Pattaya and BKK I can assure you