Life Insurance

Like most soft-hearted, wholegrained liberals, I think it's important to try and accept the idiosyncrasies of other cultures, even when those idiosyncrasies are truly idiotic.

But that's only valid as long as we're talking about cute little quirks that harm no one - like French people going topless in public or African tribesmen jamming dinnerware in their dangly bits. But when a culture's behaviour borders on the flagrantly dangerous, even a muffin-headed hippie must put a Birkenstocked foot down and say "Dude, it's not ALL good." It is usually at this point that the United Nations gets involved.

Which is why I think it's about time that the UN immediately draft a resolution, insisting that Thai people learn how to drive properly. The mortality rate from traffic accidents here is so high it practically constitutes genocide. Something must be done, and fast - if not for the sake of peace and humanity that all we hold dear, then just for the sake of my social life. I'm afraid to leave my goddamn house.

Don't get me wrong - Thais aren't the only people in the world that drive badly. It's just that they could drive so much better. It seems to me that Thais are a considerate and controlled people, not nearly as hot-blooded and irresponsible as many of the world's great driving nations. I, for example, hail from Los Angeles, where many drivers employ handguns more often than they do their turn signal. And despite lingering Western stereotypes about Asians, people in Thailand are actually very skilled at handling motor vehicles. Where else can a drunk fourteen year old girl zip through traffic on a 50cc moped while talking on her cell phone to two friends directly behind her, sitting sideways, with a small, terrified dog? They shouldn't be on the street - they should be in the circus.

So to prevent an inevitable peacekeeping invasion by UN police, I suggest that Thais review the following key points and modify their driving habits accordingly. Then we can all live in peace with the secure feeling that we won't have to ever entrust our lives to amphetamine-addled ambulance drivers whose standard operating procedure is 1) shake unconscious victim violently to see if he or she is still alive, and then 2) transport now-dying victim to a hospital fifty kilometres away because they pay the highest kickbacks.

Every road here has it. It's that imaginary lane on the far left where anything goes and everything is possible. Teenagers drive motorcycles the wrong way. Adults double-park trucks bigger than their houses. Vendors gingerly push ice-cream trolleys, stopping for languid roadside service to aforementioned unmoving trucks. Evil songtaew swerve in front of you at the slightest hint of a customer. Worst of all, if you drive too slowly down this lane late at night you run the risk of being yanked off your bike by an impatient lady-boy. The point: too much freedom is a bad thing. But if you drive in the far-right lane, speed junkies in tricked-out Toyotas will smash into you from behind. The Buddha was right - always take the middle lane. If there is one.

Seen from above, traffic in Thailand must look like a great undulating mass of protoplasm. Everyone drifts here and there, changing lanes, it seems, more for reasons of boredom than purpose. As if they just want to see what it's like in your lane. Or on the sidewalk. Or the other side of the street. Motorcyclists are especially foolhardy. You'd think that most humans hurtling through space at sixty kilometres an hour might want to see what it was they were hurtling into. Not so with many Thais, who incorrectly presume that what they don't know won't hurt them.

Lemmings are animals that will literally follow each other off a cliff. So too, will citizens of this fine country continue to make right turns at high speeds through a traffic light that turned red ten cars in front of them. A few times I have actually missed my own green light when this discourteous exercise of power-in-numbers would simply not end. Worse, last week I was nearly run over by a young girl making a squealing right turn in a huge truck on a light that went red a full five seconds earlier. Outside of misanthropy or colourblindness, there is simply no excuse for this.

Kudos to the kind traffic police who now regularly check to make sure people are wearing their safety helmets. It's heartwarming that they routinely devote their entire day of police work just to protect the lives of their countryfolk. Consequently, I am always happy to pay whatever fines they demand, secure in the knowledge that the funds go toward other equally-effective safety programmes. I have but one quibble: The helmets most drivers wear are barely sturdy enough to serve tom yum, the spicier varieties of which could eat right through the thin plastic. In most cases, a headscarf would offer more protection. I seem to remember a recent controversy in which Sikh men were unable to wear helmets because their religion mandated they wear a turban. But I'd rather have a big Sikh hair helmet than one of the Tupperware turbans worn by everyone else. At most, these just make the brains easier to scoop up.

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