Driving in Chiang Mai

[julieann]

DRIVING IN CHIANG MAI

You have arrived in Chiang Mai from the west and everybody can tell you are a visitor: your head is spinning and your eyes are flashing to take in every new sight. Perhaps even your ears are wobbling to accommodate the new sounds. Certainly, your nose will be twitching. Wandering the streets your brain tries to understand the unfamiliar language and signs.

Crossing the road is an unexpected hazard. Refreshingly, almost no vehicle is honking. Then you realise that red traffic lights do not mean ‘STOP’ they just mean slow down a little. In contrast, however, crossing on a pedestrian crossing may elicit hooting: perhaps drivers get more points for knocking someone off a zebra crossing. Highest points are allocated for mothers with pushchairs and the elderly. Chiang Mai is probably the only town where you need to look both ways before crossing a sidewalk!

The highlights are the motorcycles. Every machine has two wing mirrors. One allows the driver to overtake on the wrong side while the other is for tweaking hairs from your chin/nose/eyebrows (depending on your gender), or for squeezing your zits. Look at that poor motorcyclist with what appears to be a horribly deformed spine. He is driving the wrong way along the sidewalk! Closer scrutiny shows that he is hunched up to retain a mobile under his ear. He cannot use the other hand because that is holding a large iced coffee. Anyway, one hand is sometimes on the handlebars.

Here is another motorbike. This one has the whole family on board. Dad is driving with a tiny one in front clinging on to the steering device. Behind is Mum, casually sitting side-saddle with her toes turned up to keep her flip-flops from falling down. Between her and Dad are two other kids in school uniform. Mum is  burdened with a baby and a sack of shopping. My goodness, there is also a dog in the basket on the front!

A police checkpoint stops only motorcyclists who are not wearing helmets. Many helmets are not strapped up. There is no realisation that in the event of an accident, the unstrapped helmet is likely to finish up detached from its owner on the other side of the road.  A huge lady, who would definitively need two seats on a bus or plane, lurches uncertainly down the steps of the hospital wearing her unfastened headgear. What seems to be her granddaughter is waiting with a motorbike although hardly able to see over the steering. (I was told that you are allowed at any age to drive a motorbike – if you know how). Grandma approaches the machine and swings a huge leg over the passenger saddle. The unaccustomed centre of gravity shift topples the bike, passenger and driver. Several rush to help and one retrieves the head protection from the far lane taking care to avoid unsympathetic drivers of other vehicles. The helmet is obviously an encumbrance and is consigned to the front shopping basket with the dog. The motorbike weaves its way up the road. Grandma’s feet are unable to find the footrests and they skim, surfboard fashion, a fraction above the surface of the road.

Driving here is nothing to do with skill or safety: it is all about not losing face. To prevent Overtakers, the vehicle immediately ahead weaves back and forth to the frustration of the follower who is trying to weave out of sequence in order to snatch a chance of overtaking. But the tuk-tuk ahead has secret devices to minimise the risk of being overtaken. The driver slaps his foot twice in quick succession on a special pedal and the vehicle emits a dark cloud of stinking smoke, octopus style. If that does not deter the follower, the touch of another button sets off an ear-shattering backfire explosion. This is a strong deterrent. The cyclist determines to call at the nearest wayside repair hut to get his engine detuned so that he too can emit smoke clouds and bangs.

There are several reasons to account for the left indicator flashing on the vehicle ahead. It could mean:

-          The driver turned left at the last junction and forgot to turn it off after entering the main road

-          The indicator is stuck on permanently

-          The driver is testing the left indicator

-          The driver might turn left but is unsure

-          The driver likes the reassurance of the clicking sound

One woman car driver, who had caused a terrible accident on the Super Highway, put all the blame on the other driver. She told the policeman that she signalled that she was turning right, then she signalled clearly that she had changed her mind!

I was once driving along the Thapae one-way road when I was aware of a motorcyclist approaching me head on. I stopped and shouted to him that this was a one-way road. His response? “But I’m only going one way!

 

PS. March 2014. Paris is taking the opportunity to reduce pollution by limiting vehicles with odd and even number plates to alternate days of the week. I was in Nigeria years ago when the same ploy was adopted in Lagos. The sale of number plates rocketed. The Plebs rose 20 minutes earlier every day to change the number plates on their vehicles; the rich simply bought another car!

[Kwasaki]

Have you anything to add.  

[chickenslegs]

Great first post julieann.

This made me smile - so true of Mrs Chickenslegs.

 

9 hours ago, julieann said:

Behind is Mum, casually sitting side-saddle with her toes turned up to keep her flip-flops from falling down.