Day 34 - Car accident #1 (Thailand)

A few days ago we had a discussion about who was the most likely to have the first accident. It is afterall bound to happen at some point, hopefully just a ding here and there, but surely we will crash considering the amount of time we will spend driving on hectic Asian roads. Well it turns out that person was to be Denner. There we were minding our own business, driving along a quiet side street 50m from our accommodation, when suddenly out of nowhere a scooter flies around the corner behind us and goes for the overtake. Unfortunately we were stopped to make a right hand turn and consequently he clipped the corner of Trevor's front bumper and went skidding 20m down the road.

We of course pulled over to the side of the road and got out to see that the two riders were ok, as any reasonable person does at the scene of an accident. Considering both of the riders were obviously fine (small grazes on elbows and knees), we assumed that we would hang out with them for a bit, make sure they were ok and everyone would be on their way. But of course every tom, dick and harry that realised there was a commotion came over to give their two cents worth, and after someone continually tried to get us to just hand over some (coverup) cash to which we said no, the scooter rider called the police. We were very impressed with the response time of the traffic police, and the fact that a paramedic was soon there aswell to check out the damage.

As it was quite obviously entirely the other driver's fault - he was overtaking a turning car which had an indicator on, he was on the wrong side of the road, we were stopped, he didn't have a helmet on which is compulsory in Thailand, and to top it all off we found out that he didn't even have a driver's licence - we were quite happy for the police to come and sort everything out properly. We're pretty sure the policeman realised that there was no question of who's fault it was, but still apparently we were suppoesd to pay for the damage to his bike and his "hospital bill". Denner of course being of a gentle character, not to mention the fact that he was the individual who was actually at the wheel at the time of the accident, would have prefered to be dismissed from the scene as quickly as possible, by whatever means necessary. Ben however, being the antagonistic, obnoxious, (insert expletive here) member of the team, was not having a bar of this and decided to go with the scare-them-off method. After yet another cop turning up and a whole bunch of sketch drawing of the scene and other such surely unnecessary things, they seemed to get the idea that we (Ben) was not going to give up.  continued to empty the contents of his wallet into Ben's hands, the grand total of which was 320 bhat (approx AU$10) and US$1. It's not exactly enough to pay for the panel beating of a car bumper, but it's certainly enough to claim victory.