By Nirmal Ghosh
Thailand Correspondent
nirmal@sph.com.sg

 

IN BANGKOK

ACCORDING to official records, in January this year alone, as many as 18 people died in Phuket in 362 accidents, of which the vast majority, 219, involved motorbikes; 321 people were injured in the crashes.

One recent accident, on Feb 22, snuffed out two other lives. British national Adam William Menagh, 22, apparently in town for a kickboxing competition, died in a head-on motorbike accident with a Thai, Chainarong Wathana, 24, on another motorcycle — who also died on the spot.

Menagh's pillion rider, a Danish national, was taken to hospital in critical condition. The accident occurred at around 5.30am.

I had a motorcycle accident myself in January 2007, in Bangkok. While I was recovering, I wrote a piece on the risk of motorcycles. I was not the first to do so; many journalists have written of the risks of motorcycles, and the fact that there is a high motorcycle related accident rate in Phuket.

Thailand's national motorcycle accident fatality rate is 38 a day, according to the website of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Yet nothing seems to change.

The Phuket Gazette in an editorial last Sunday wrote that the issue of motorbike safety had come up at the monthly meeting between Phuket Governor Wichai Phraisa-ngop and 16 honorary consuls of foreign countries.

"Casualty figures alone justify the need to keep inexperienced, unlicensed and often inebriated bikers off Phuket's roads," the Gazette said. "In a single day last week, six people perished in motorbike accidents on the island, most of them still in their youth.

"An instant improvement could be realized by simply enforcing existing laws. Anyone operating a motorbike in Thailand is legally required to hold a valid Thai motorcycle license. Yet this law is seldom enforced — and when it is, the riders simply pay a 'fine' before driving off."

Many of Phuket's roads are winding and undulating, and on the outskirts of Phuket city sparsely trafficked which encourages speeding.

People unused to driving motorbikes can easily rent one — sometimes to get around the problem of limited and expensive public transport in Phuket. The system is skewed in support of using the ubiquitous motorbikes on rent and hire.

Some drive them wearing flipflops, some after having a beer or more. In heavy rain showers, quite frequent in some months, roads get wet and slippery. According to reports, Menagh and Chainarong were not wearing helmets.

It's a recipe for disaster and grief, a terrible waste of mostly young lives just trying to have a good time — and it wreaks an awful toll on locals as well.

Recently, Phuket city police employed four locals who had all been badly injured in road accidents and ended up disabled and unemployed. Their job is to monitor CCTVs covering Phuket's roads and swiftly alert the police to problems.

The Gazette suggested: "As it is unlikely that the police will ever crack down on companies that hold riders' passports or rent out bikes to people without Thai licenses, perhaps the law should be changed to allow foreign motorbike riders to ride legally in Thailand on a foreign motorcycle license. This might at least afford some increase in the odds of the driver having the ability to operate a motorbike and basic knowledge of the risks."

Having been in a motorcycle accident which broke my left leg like a matchstick, leaving me on crutches for more than six months, and hobbling in pain for over a year, I know the misery such accidents can cause — and mine could have been much worse.

In the same week I had my accident, the Italian manager of a popular restaurant in my neighborhood, riding his own bike with his girlfriend, crashed. Both were killed.

That was Bangkok. Phuket is a different story of course. If only it were not a worse story.

The lesson? It's the usual: Don't rent a motorcycle unless you have some experience driving one — and rent a bike in the same weight and engine class that you have experience on. Drive carefully. Don't drink and drive. Wear a helmet, and if you have a pillion rider they must wear one too. Sometimes in the rush of a holiday blast all this may seem inconvenient.

But measure it against the inconvenience of shattered bones and crippled limbs and faculties. Or a violent death.