Comment by stephenr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by stephenr | Hacker News Reader

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I wouldn't say "safety" is a reason to come to Thailand. Unless you meant "learn to practice personal safety in every aspect of daily life"

Edit: to clarify, even if you ignore all the household issues to deal with (eg "electricians" saying "what's that third wire for" is common) Thailand is number four on the most dangerous places to drive list. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/most-dan...

Outside of Bangkok, the following are just accepted norms for driving:

• no seatbelts

• no child seats

• ignore stop/give way signs/traffic lights

• drive the wrong way on the side of the road (applies to vehicles of all sizes)

• no understanding of how roundabout works (enter without looking, force existing traffic to stop for you)

• drive at 150kph+ on a 90kph road

• ignore marked turning/straight lanes, cut across non-turning traffic to make turns at intersections

I've seen kids drive better in GTA than some people do here.

I won't deny it. Pickups driving 150 km/h, minivan drivers on pills, no seatbelt. It all happens.

But living and driving and driving in SE Asia makes me always wonder where these data come from. It is against my personal experience.

Thailand has pretty good, multi-lane and empty roads. Good and modern cars. And really fast emergency response, police checkpoints, etc. - compared to it's neighbors.

- Indonesia (Bali is the worst place for me in the whole world, other places are also bad) - really bad roads, lots of cars, zero hope to get the victim to the hospital on time,

- Laos,

- Myanmar - there is now a lot of cars in country with almost no roads and no driving culture) or

- China - good roads, good cars but 'I am the person that matters on the road' culture. Tons of deadly accidents that I have witnessed myself.

Getting back to Thailand from Indonesia makes me always feel so safe on the road (I usually drive motorbike in the North in winter).

Indeed. I have lived in Thailand many years and the terribly dangerous driving habits are one of the very few things that make me wonder if I should move somewhere else. I drive quite a bit outside Bangkok and see very rude and dangerous behaviors constantly.

Thailand has the world's highest traffic fatality rate. A study concluded that it was because of high government corruption. I took a look at the data from the study that might be of interest to some people[1].

[1]https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bad-drivers-indicator-governm...

Fair, I guess I meant comparatively to alternate cheap living destinations of digital nomads.

also add insanely high levels of gun crime and violence compared to most of the region/world (peaking around payday), and Australia levels of deadly wildlife

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