What Thailand’s deadly roads can teach us about risk
Our fear of the unknown does nothing to protect us
Being born and raised in a developed country makes it easy to take life for granted. It’s easy to forget that not every country has a high life expectancy. It’s easy to remain ignorant of the huge number of factors that contribute to this confident number — Sophisticated legal and law enforcement systems that punish those who put lives in danger; modern, easily-accessible healthcare; education and public services that keep people informed of risks as they emerge. All of these things are products of a wealthy society, and it takes living abroad to truly understand that life exists, and indeed thrives, outside this protective shell.
Those who live and work remotely in developing countries gain deep wisdom into the value of life, and the real meaning of conscious risk-taking. In life and in business, this insight is transformative. It’s not at all necessary to live dangerously to understand this; on the contrary, it’s not hard to build a life in Southeast Asia with all the security and comfort that would have been available back home. Iglu helps make this a reality by managing taxes, health insurance and invoicing for Digital Expats in Thailand.
But that which we don’t understand is often the source of much fear.
It can be a shock — the sight of an entire 5-person family riding a single scooter at 75 km/hr.
Arriving in Southeast Asia is a surreal experience for most westerners. The first sighting of a family-on-a-bike is one thing, but it’s quite another to slowly realise that it’s not an oddity, but an ubiquitous fact of life in this part of the world.
Plenty of tourists never get past the disbelief phase, and go home to speak of what they’ve seen in astonished and sometimes judgemental tones of voice. The figures only seem to confirm those attitudes:
- Thailand is 2nd in the world for road accident deaths, after Libya.
- 24,000 people are estimated to die on Thai roads every year.
- 73% of those killed are motorcyclists.
At first glance, it seems like the bike itself is the culprit; a ruthless killer roaming the streets heralding inevitable destruction wherever it goes.
Not so.
Scooters and motorbikes are a dominant force throughout the region — yet in every other ASEAN country, death tolls are conspicuously average. Some journalists have commented that perhaps officials in Vietnam fudge the figures to disguise their fatality rate — but unless the deceit is huge in scope, Thailand’s roads are uniquely lethal.
The unfortunate truth is that the land of smiles has a serious drink driving problem; cue round two of Western condescension. Thai officials point to this as a major contributor to the mortality rate, and over the years the government has devoted more and more resources to public health campaigns imploring citizens not to put themselves and others in danger through this reckless behaviour. Slowly but surely, young Thais are starting to change their habits.
Drunk driving is not the only culprit — speed is a clear factor.
More than any other country in the region, Thailand’s economic development has been brisk, and social change has not quite kept apace. Fast driving is now possible, thanks to the country’s impressive network of roads, while speed limits go largely ignored. Fines are small and traffic police lack the resources to enforce them with any kind of consistency.
It’s tempting to assume that people drive fast because they’re ignorant of the dangers, or because the thrill is addictive. This doesn’t tell the whole story; there is a powerful economic incentive attached to getting around quickly. The country is changing rapidly and presents new challenges every day — for many Thais, one wrong turn can be the difference between prosperity and poverty. Standing still is more dangerous than going fast, because standing still creates the possibility that the world will pass by and leave you behind.
This mindset tends to alarm westerners. Underpinning most wealthy democracies is a loose understanding that human lives are priceless. While this is a noble principle, it’s totally incongruent with the reality of society: If it were an essential goal of public policy to reduce the number of avoidable deaths as much as possible, all driving would be illegal. Even in highly developed countries, decisions at the top level are informed by the economic consideration that a certain number of deaths is acceptable for certain economic benefits. In other words, the modern political economy gives every human life an explicit cash value.
Ignorance of the value of life — both in brutal economic terms and in the more spiritual, idealistic sense — allows a deep complacency to take root.
While life in rapidly-growing economies is characterised by risk and a broad range of possible futures, life in developed countries is static. For all the talk of entrepreneurial spirit, western cultures are decidedly risk-averse. Security, both real and imagined, is the fundamental principle. This brings with it resistance to change and a general social dullness that permeates every aspect of life. Society is geared towards viewing all kinds of pain, struggle and failure as destructive rather than constructive, giving parents and teachers an uphill battle if they want to allow children to encounter danger and learn essential self-confidence and decision-making skills.
Professionals who emigrate to Thailand quickly become aware of the futility of the western safety bubble. Focussed drivers are able to navigate Thailand’s roads with little difficulty, and the freedom gained from the ownership of even a small scooter can be a huge revelation. Urban life is dramatically different in cities dominated by bikes rather than cars; more life can be squeezed into a smaller area of public space, making cities more social and inexplicably more beautiful. Motorcycle riders from other countries (where cars tend to demand additional respect) feel liberated by their status on the road in Southeast Asia, and the geographic extremes of Thailand — from the mountains of the north to the beaches of the south — offer endless opportunities to explore.
