Thailand : Most hostile biking environment in the world!

Yes, you read it right. Thailand has the most hostile biking environment on earth, where a motorcyclist dies every 40 minutes!
The article came in one of the best Superbike magazines around, BIKE UK, July 2007 issue.

It is rush hour and I need to get across the Thai capital, Bangkok. The vast urban sprawl that spreads out around me is a blanket of concrete, smog and dense, chaotic traffic. Nothing seems to be moving as horns blare and the choking pollution thickens. Every sense is being battered - eyes itch, thooat stings head throbs. An oppressive heat coupled with steaming humidity coumpounds this discomfort, the stink of the city seems to be working itself into my very pores. How am I going to get out of here? Then some movement. A flash of metal, a blur against the static, endless parade of cars, trucks , buses, pick-ups and SUVs. The tiny missile gathers speed, grazing the bumpers and mirrors of the thronged mass of metal, dodging the blows like an adrenaline-soaked boxer. The missile is a step-thru 125cc Honda Dream, its rider one of Bangkoks army of motorcycle taxi drivers - the infamous motorsai.

The rider is clad in old jeans, sweat stained T-shirt and a bright orange zip-up high-vis vest. His helmet has all the strenght of a plastic salad bowl, his footwear nasty flip flops. The ensemble dosent amount to much on paper but this wide eyed road warrior is giving it some, pushing 50mph through the deadly traffic. His pillion, a fine-featured female, pencil skirt and suit-jacket, sits side-saddle, high heels hanging nonchalantly from her painted toes. She appears completely disinterested as the machine whirls its way at terrifying speeds, death an instant away.

The Honda step-thru is big business in Thailand. An incredible 7,5 million new Honda Dream and Wawes have been sold in the past seven years. Factor in the other makers - particularly Yamaha - and the figure is approaching 12 million in the same period for step-thrus alone. And these bikes are cheap - a new, state-of-art 4 stroke Honda Wawe is about 650 GBP. And a nimble step-thru is perfect for weaving through Bangkoks dense traffic.
With the interminable gridlock only getting worse, I watch dozens of motorsai. I witness incredible near misses, as fume-puking buses and trucks skim the knees of the advancing riders. Van and car drivers seem intent on breaking limbs and splitting flesh, lurching towards the motorcycle taxis. Thankfully, I dnt have to proof my manhood on this form of suicidal transport. I wait in line for the bus.

I,ve been a motorsai for almost 20 years, says the tiny old man sitting opposite me in a Bangkok noodle stall the next afternoon. I,m 66 years old and plan to carry on as long as I can. But arent you worried about having an accident? I have had more than 25 accidents but nothing too bad, he says, gazing at the thick scars on his arms and legs, and at the array of powerfull Buddhist amulets that hang down onto his chest. I always feel protected.
Divine intervention or not, Khun Was is one of Bangkoks unsong heroes. In a city that has been eaten alive by cars, the motorsai keep Bangkok moving. When I first started out in the 1980s everyone on my win (rank) had to pay 500bath a month to gangsters, says Was. It was a lot of money back then, but nobody needed a licence or insurance. Every win up until 2003 was run by the local mafia. If you dident pay your dues you could get bad problems. We where all quite scared of them, he adds. Now we just have to pay for our surwins (high-vis-vest).

But gangsters are far from the only peril facing Bangkoks motorsai. The most obvius and deadly threat is the traffic. Without doubt, Thailand has some of the most dangerous roads in the world - and particularly for motorcyclists. The Foreign Office website (www.fco.gov.uk) reveals that 38 motorcyclists die on Thailands roads every day - thats one every 40 minutes.
With few proper helmets and sometimes four people to a bike, its easy to see how this death rate is reached. Besides, after wiping out a family of four on a step-thru, the guilty truck/bus/pick-up/car driver seldom stops to face the music. In the worst cases, drivers are known to go back and reverse over their victims to make sure they are dead. The reason? Without survivors theres no invistigation and the drivers gets to keep their no-claims.
So how do you stay safe? Everyday when I go out I feel frightened. But I pray to the Lord Buddha for inner silence, so that I always have a quiet place inside me that helps me stay focused, says Was, and my amulets are very powerfull and help protect me. I have travelled many miles to find an amulet that has god powers. I also go to the temple once a month and ask the monks for protection. I like to leave the Buddha there a small gift.

For westeners, the Thais concept of death and accidents appears like a denial of reality. When we have a spill, rational thinking is immediately brought to bear on its causes. In Thailand, karma and the spirit world play a big part in a road death toll that unofficial estimates place at almost 30.000 a year.
The Thais are convinced that karma decides when it is your turn to die, says "Time out Bangkok" author Phill Cornwell-Smith. They have a strong belif in fatalism and would see any road accident as part of that. However, thats not to say they just give in to fate - they pragmatically couple that ftalism with talismans to maximise their luck.
This leads to a belief in a kind of fully comp spiritual road insurance policy. Wearing amulets, particularly honorific ones of Buudha, makes merit, wich increases karma, explains Cornwell-Smith. But many Thais have a back-up in the form of monk blessings or magic spells. When an amulet wearer suffers a crash its assumed hes broken a vow. If he escapes death, its assumed his lucky amulet saved hes life.

There is also a facination with death in Thai culture that most westeners would consider ghoulish. Every day, the front pages of the Thai tabloids are adorned with graphic photos of horrific road accidents (75% will involve motorcyclists) and mangled corpses.
Death, particularly a violent road accident death, is considered a powerful occurrence in the spirit world. The Thais belive that if they see or touch the cadavers resulting from souch an accidents, some of the dead persons potent spirit will rub off, making them more powerful. In Bangkok, the body collection squads (there are so many road deaths the thinly stretched ambulance service no longer collects the victims), eager to gain spirit power from a fresh kill, have been known to fight over the corpses.

Later that day, with the heat becoming unbearable and monsoon rain gathering, I head through the labyrinthine back streets to the Win where Was works. About 15 riders are lounging on a long wooden bench set against a wall. Others are sprawled over their step-thrus, shades on, mean and moody. The ambience is languid, the boiling temperature inducing a stupor that makes it difficult to stay upright, never mind concentrate.
At first glance the boys on the Win are a rough and ready crowd. While most Bangkokians will use motorcycle taxis to get around the gridlock, they do not consider motorsai as a reputable bunch. The hi-so (Thai slang for the wealthy elite of high - society) hate us, says Was. They drive their BMW or Mercedes very aggressively and even try to run us off the road.
But in some caces the motorsais reputation is deserved. Many of them are tough Bangkok street kids, machetes hidden ready for trouble, swigging bottles of ephedrine-laced Red-Bull type drinks. Several Wins are known for the use of yabba, a psychosis-inducing version of crysyal meth that sends most users to the mourge or the asylum. And the boys on the Win often have little time for foreigners. I never charge any foreigner extra, but I know that most motorsai charge double, says Was.

With darkness settling on the city, the moment of truth arrives - its my turn to ride with the motorsai. I have to get to Hualamphong, Bangkoks central railway station, And Was has made me an offer I cant refuse. Ill charge you the local price-40bath he says. Ahead of us is a two-mile ride talking in one of Bangkoks busiest. most vibrant areas - Chinatown.
I climb on the Honda, Was offers me one of the salad-bowl helmets and we set of into the heaving scrum of traffic. The first thing I notice is our vulnerability - the bike feels like a tiny speck in a maelstrom of hostile, moving metal. Then it becomes very clear that, two-up, Was ancient Honda is struggeling to make any real acceleration, the words, "sitting" and "duck" springs to mind.
We weawe our way, at speed, through a ludicrously busy junction, cars, buses and vans flowing at us from all directions. I feel my throat go dry as the fear rises. Was seems oblivious to what I consider reality as he changes lanes without even the slightest glance in his mirrors, causing vehicles to brake and swerve sharply behind us. But this is all part of the mad theatre - everybody on Bangkoks roads appears to be engaged in a giant game of chicken, cutting each other up, pulling out without indicating and crossing lanes without looking. Was negotiates the junction in one piece. Within seconds, a local bus, horns blaring, aggressively cuts straight over our path - missing us by millimetres, belching a thick chocke of fumes in its wake. Was seems unfazed, barely glancing up - my heart pounds in my chest.

Up ahead sits a long queue of traffic, narrow gaps on either side. We approach and Was accelerates. I wait for him to hit the brakes - I am mentally willing Was to slow - but he just keeps going, the Honda gaining momentum. We skim through the gap in the static traffic at about 50mph, my knees so close to the line of cars that they occasionally brush the paintwork. It is, not to put to fine a point on it, Terrifying. At this point i begin to twitch.
By the good grace of the divine and all that is holy, we soon reach Chinatown. Here the traffic reaches a feverish crescendo while gaudy street lights illuminates throngs of roadside food stalls, delicius smells cutting through the Bangkok smog. After dodging cars, buses and trucks a new obstacle is introduced - the aimless pedestrian. An endless flow of people, most of them engrossed in their recently purchased snacks, pick their way trough the traffic. Was somehow manage to miss them all.

With a serenity akin to a monk Was gets me to my final destination without incident. To be honest, I am almost moved to prayer and feel grateful that Im alive.
With blood-sugar levels chrashing from the brain-bursting fear, I sit down on a roadside stool hoping the palpitations will soon pass. I also realise that with traffic like this you probably need some kind of direct intervention from God/Allah/Buddah to stay in one piece.
I dig into my wallet for 40 bath and Was accepts it with a gracious smile and a small bow. I tell him to stay safe and be lucky. "Dont worry" this sweet, brave road warrior tells me before he rides of into the night, "Iam always protected".


SOURCE OF TEXT: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showuser=44561