Eleven year olds on motorcycles are a perfectly normal thing.  Clearly I have been here too long. I realized this the other day, on the last day of tutoring kids for a little while.

The Thai school term ends in a couple of weeks, so I have ended already. That’s because after-school stuff must give way to all the end-of-term events. We said our goodbyes, and I had some jokey pencil erasers as gifts, which they liked, and off they went, towards freedom.

On their motorcycles. Proper 125cc, not a moped. Eleven year olds.

Keep this a secret please

This is normal in rural areas so remote, nobody in faraway towns knows what the hell is really going on. Also, they have bigger, uglier problems than this. Plus, even without that last point, it’s just accepted, and once an environment has evolved to accept something across the board, well, that something is not going to go away, is it?

Once kids can ride motorbikes, they are certainly not going to stop. Ever. Not even at stop signs, but there aren’t very many of those. It’s more or less a free-for-all, not unlike the Wild West.

So, the coolest kids ride not bicycles but motorcycles,  and this is normal. No helmets, bare feet, six of them piled on, whatever. What’s really the weirdest is how I’ve stopped noticing what would be police matters where I come from.

Why do so few people on motorcycles wear helmets?

At a college, I once did an English lesson on this topic of motorcycle helmets. Did anyone want to wear them? No. Did anyone ever wear them? No. This was in a group of about 20 people, all grown-ups, half of them Thai and the other half from an assortment of nations.

I asked why. Their reasons were varied. It’s uncomfortable. They’re dirty. They just don’t like it. Nobody does this (actually, more and more do, but they are in a small minority).

Accidents? What accidents?

They didn’t want to think about safety or preventing accidents. My impression is that generally it’s quietly suspected there are loads and loads of avoidable accidents, where people get killed due to not wearing a helmet.

However on the other hand, statistics here are notoriously unreliable, and usually are simply not published – allegedly. So, it’s easy to believe there are hardly any accidents at all. One drives with rosy-coloured visors.

Finally, a helmet can mess up your hair-do. There’s a compelling bottom line for you.

On a related topic, when I get back to Europe, I must remember to fasten my safety belt in the car. I haven’t seen that done out here, in years, if ever.

That’s the view from our little village. As for the rest of the nation:

AsianCorrespondants.com have this to report

In 2012, The Guardian reported that motorbike accidents were a top cause of death, with 11,000 drivers or passengers dying each year. In Thailand, it’s widely reported that head trauma of motorcycle riders is the main cause of death, while the WHO repots 74% of fatalities on the road are motorcycle riders.

Thailand ranked number two in a university’s study of road fatalities in the world, second only to Namibia.

The road fatality rate in Thailand is more than double the global average.

African countries dominated the 10 worst countries for road deaths, along with Iran, Iraq and Dominican Republic. In Asia, Mongolia was the next most dangerous country, followed by Malaysia, China and India.

According to the study, the Maldives, Tajikistan and Malta are the safest places to drive in the world.

Thailand has made headlines on several occasions in recent years due to its appalling road safety record.

Anyone who has been on a bus trip in Thailand has likely experienced the high speeds and frenetic driving that make these roads so dangerous.

http://asiancorrespondent.com/131679/thailand-road-deaths/

http://asiancorrespondent.com/119892/study-thailand-roads-2nd-most-dangerous-in-the-world/