Bangkok roads are not for the faint of heart and that has nothing to do with protests. It’s in the top 10 (apparently currently 6th) in the world for traffic fatalities, with upwards of 80% of those deaths being drivers of and passengers on scooters. If you've set foot in Bangkok you're probably nodding your head right now but the Thai people we’ve talked to about this are usually surprised, “Really? I mean, I knew it couldn’t be good but I didn’t know it was so bad.”
Scooters buzz around and through traffic like locusts. They drive on sidewalks, on the wrong side of the street, between cars. At a red light a swarm of them will wind their way to the front of the pack waiting for the first crack in traffic to race through the intersection enmass. The color of the light is inconsequential. I routinely see scooters with children under the age of 10 riding on them, no helmets. I saw a guy driving a scooter with a sleeping child on this lap, no helmet. I’ve seen four full grown adults on a scooter. Seeing three adults on a scooter isn't even noteworthy. Often the scooter driver will have a helmet but the passenger rarely does.
A large part of the reason there are so many scooters is they serve as cheap taxis. Not only are they cheap but they’re usually the only reasonable motorized way to get from one side of an alley to the other. The alleys connecting major thoroughfares are completely insane labyrinths here. The streets may only be a kilometer apart but the alley’s route turns that into a 3 kilometer walk, which wouldn’t be that big a deal but it’s fraking hot and humid even when it isn’t. I told 12-year-old Pin, one of the kids I tutor, that if she wants an easy way to become a national hero she should import the idea of proper alleys. Her mother laughed but Pin was baffled.
I have been tempted by the idea of getting a ride on one of these scooter taxis. The idea of it. Not the reality of it. I’ll often look at someone zipping away on the back of a scooter and think, “Man, that looks convenient and exhilarating and it’s so cheap to boot.” But my mind and I are very tight at this point and neither wants to part with the other just yet so no scooter rides for me, thank you very much but no thank you.
[ADDED BONUS REASON: earlier this week I was hanging out with a doctor working on multi-drug resistant diseases. She’s from the UK and has been in Thailand on-and-off for the last 22 years. This is dang near a direct quote, “If you get in a serious accident here, like you get hit by a car, tell them not to call an ambulance. It’s better if you die right there on the street. Trust me.” On the flip side she also said vegetarians are at a lower risk of dying from multi-drug resistant diseases because a lot of the immunity people build up to the drugs that will save them comes from the livestock they consume. #instantkarma?]
Last night Spectra and I decided to walk the two kilometers home from the metro station. Usually we take a bus for sweat related reasons but the traffic was hellacious and it was only hot instead of miserable so we walked. The walk is as pleasant as can be hoped for along a seven-lane street except for one point where it intersects a six-lane street with an elevated six-lane highway over head. There's the "idea" of crosswalks in the sense that there are stripes painted on the street but there's never a light that allows you to freely cross. The lights merely create windows with more or less traffic for you to weave your way through.
Spectra hated crossing that intersection so much that she abandoned it for a while. She'd only cross on a bus. For real, if I suggested checking out a restaurant on the other side she'd say, "Nope, wrong side." After observing Thai people cross and fully embracing the Frogger nature of it she relented and will now begrudgingly cross it on foot.
I guess what I'm trying to convey is if you wanted to take a picture entitled "How Humans Ruined Planet Earth" you'd at least want to consider this intersection. That's what we were crossing last night when we heard full blown, slamming-the-breaks-at-a-moderate-speed screeching and turned our heads to see, approximately 40-feet away, a scooter get hit by a car.
The car rear ended the scooter at, I'm guessing, 25-miles-per-hour. The scooter's rear swung out about 45-degrees, there was an instant it looked like the scooter driver was going to steer his way out of it but he didn't. The scooter went down sideways and the driver managed to get both hands out to theoretically break his fall but it couldn't have helped. His thank-the-gods-helmeted head whipped against the pavement with a violent jerk that I keep seeing when my mind wanders and makes me queasy. Then the tangle of scooter and man ground to stop and he wasn't making any obvious movements.
Then everything froze. All traffic from every direction stopped. It got as quiet as possible surrounded by hundreds of idling autos under a six-lane highway. We froze too. I distinctly felt half of me wanting to run over there and the other half saying you do not want to see the mess under that scooter. Mercifully before I could resolve that internal standoff guys who were sitting at the light right in front of the accident jumped off their scooters and rushed over to him. Spectra and I slowly walked away in a daze. Traffic hadn't started moving again and, whether it was related or not, there were sirens in the distance.
Spectra was so shaken she agreed eating dinner at McDonalds was a grand idea. Over corn pies (basically creamed corn in an apple pie) and fries we fact checked each others recollections. Spectra saw more of it than I did. Something about the scooter had already caught her attention when the car hit its brakes. We weren't sure who was at fault but it seemed more likely to be the scooter. I couldn't stop seeing his head crack against the pavement but Spectra was more worried about the leg under the scooter. I was fretting about what the UK doctor lady had told me the night before when Spectra said the thing that just about broke my heart, "I hope his scooter's alright. That's probably his livelihood."
That hadn't occurred to be me but she was right. The guy was definitely wearing the distinctive orange vest and full body coverage regalia you only see the taxi guys wear. I was retroactively thankful he didn't have a fare, the majority of whom appear to be high school or university young ladies in their white shirt, long skirt uniforms. Had one of those kids been on there I honestly probably would have had to go home. As in to Minnesota. To lock myself in my mother's basement until I could handle the idea of the world again.
I don't know the first thing about insurance in Thailand so I can hope that the scooter guy was insured and his medical bills and scooter repairs will be manageable so he can return to making a living or take the money to embark on a new one. If I'm being honest with you and myself there isn't much here that would indicate that's likely.
I don't think I want to know what compels so many people here to ride on those scooters and thereby creates such a huge market for their services. Don't get me wrong, I can make some educated guesses, but for now, while I'm still seeing his head hit the ground I'm going to hope against hope that he and every other scooter taxi is well insured as are their fares. If anyone tells me otherwise I'm going to be taken aback and say, "Really? I had no idea it was so bad."
Scooters buzz around and through traffic like locusts. They drive on sidewalks, on the wrong side of the street, between cars. At a red light a swarm of them will wind their way to the front of the pack waiting for the first crack in traffic to race through the intersection enmass. The color of the light is inconsequential. I routinely see scooters with children under the age of 10 riding on them, no helmets. I saw a guy driving a scooter with a sleeping child on this lap, no helmet. I’ve seen four full grown adults on a scooter. Seeing three adults on a scooter isn't even noteworthy. Often the scooter driver will have a helmet but the passenger rarely does.
A large part of the reason there are so many scooters is they serve as cheap taxis. Not only are they cheap but they’re usually the only reasonable motorized way to get from one side of an alley to the other. The alleys connecting major thoroughfares are completely insane labyrinths here. The streets may only be a kilometer apart but the alley’s route turns that into a 3 kilometer walk, which wouldn’t be that big a deal but it’s fraking hot and humid even when it isn’t. I told 12-year-old Pin, one of the kids I tutor, that if she wants an easy way to become a national hero she should import the idea of proper alleys. Her mother laughed but Pin was baffled.
I have been tempted by the idea of getting a ride on one of these scooter taxis. The idea of it. Not the reality of it. I’ll often look at someone zipping away on the back of a scooter and think, “Man, that looks convenient and exhilarating and it’s so cheap to boot.” But my mind and I are very tight at this point and neither wants to part with the other just yet so no scooter rides for me, thank you very much but no thank you.
[ADDED BONUS REASON: earlier this week I was hanging out with a doctor working on multi-drug resistant diseases. She’s from the UK and has been in Thailand on-and-off for the last 22 years. This is dang near a direct quote, “If you get in a serious accident here, like you get hit by a car, tell them not to call an ambulance. It’s better if you die right there on the street. Trust me.” On the flip side she also said vegetarians are at a lower risk of dying from multi-drug resistant diseases because a lot of the immunity people build up to the drugs that will save them comes from the livestock they consume. #instantkarma?]
Last night Spectra and I decided to walk the two kilometers home from the metro station. Usually we take a bus for sweat related reasons but the traffic was hellacious and it was only hot instead of miserable so we walked. The walk is as pleasant as can be hoped for along a seven-lane street except for one point where it intersects a six-lane street with an elevated six-lane highway over head. There's the "idea" of crosswalks in the sense that there are stripes painted on the street but there's never a light that allows you to freely cross. The lights merely create windows with more or less traffic for you to weave your way through.
Spectra hated crossing that intersection so much that she abandoned it for a while. She'd only cross on a bus. For real, if I suggested checking out a restaurant on the other side she'd say, "Nope, wrong side." After observing Thai people cross and fully embracing the Frogger nature of it she relented and will now begrudgingly cross it on foot.
I guess what I'm trying to convey is if you wanted to take a picture entitled "How Humans Ruined Planet Earth" you'd at least want to consider this intersection. That's what we were crossing last night when we heard full blown, slamming-the-breaks-at-a-moderate-speed screeching and turned our heads to see, approximately 40-feet away, a scooter get hit by a car.
The car rear ended the scooter at, I'm guessing, 25-miles-per-hour. The scooter's rear swung out about 45-degrees, there was an instant it looked like the scooter driver was going to steer his way out of it but he didn't. The scooter went down sideways and the driver managed to get both hands out to theoretically break his fall but it couldn't have helped. His thank-the-gods-helmeted head whipped against the pavement with a violent jerk that I keep seeing when my mind wanders and makes me queasy. Then the tangle of scooter and man ground to stop and he wasn't making any obvious movements.
Then everything froze. All traffic from every direction stopped. It got as quiet as possible surrounded by hundreds of idling autos under a six-lane highway. We froze too. I distinctly felt half of me wanting to run over there and the other half saying you do not want to see the mess under that scooter. Mercifully before I could resolve that internal standoff guys who were sitting at the light right in front of the accident jumped off their scooters and rushed over to him. Spectra and I slowly walked away in a daze. Traffic hadn't started moving again and, whether it was related or not, there were sirens in the distance.
Spectra was so shaken she agreed eating dinner at McDonalds was a grand idea. Over corn pies (basically creamed corn in an apple pie) and fries we fact checked each others recollections. Spectra saw more of it than I did. Something about the scooter had already caught her attention when the car hit its brakes. We weren't sure who was at fault but it seemed more likely to be the scooter. I couldn't stop seeing his head crack against the pavement but Spectra was more worried about the leg under the scooter. I was fretting about what the UK doctor lady had told me the night before when Spectra said the thing that just about broke my heart, "I hope his scooter's alright. That's probably his livelihood."
That hadn't occurred to be me but she was right. The guy was definitely wearing the distinctive orange vest and full body coverage regalia you only see the taxi guys wear. I was retroactively thankful he didn't have a fare, the majority of whom appear to be high school or university young ladies in their white shirt, long skirt uniforms. Had one of those kids been on there I honestly probably would have had to go home. As in to Minnesota. To lock myself in my mother's basement until I could handle the idea of the world again.
I don't know the first thing about insurance in Thailand so I can hope that the scooter guy was insured and his medical bills and scooter repairs will be manageable so he can return to making a living or take the money to embark on a new one. If I'm being honest with you and myself there isn't much here that would indicate that's likely.
I don't think I want to know what compels so many people here to ride on those scooters and thereby creates such a huge market for their services. Don't get me wrong, I can make some educated guesses, but for now, while I'm still seeing his head hit the ground I'm going to hope against hope that he and every other scooter taxi is well insured as are their fares. If anyone tells me otherwise I'm going to be taken aback and say, "Really? I had no idea it was so bad."
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