Media targeting foreigners in drink-driving incidents in Thailand

Thailand's roads are very dangerous. While I don't know how this data is collected I believe that the fact that Thailand ends up in the top-3 most dangerous roads in the world is based on real information because I drive on these roads and can attest to the extreme level of danger that exists on them.

You can regularly see the detritus from a recent accident all over the roads anytime you drive anywhere and it is extremely common to witness a motorbike slamming into some other vehicle on the roadways. Drunk driving is extremely common here and I would imagine that their statistics on that sort of thing is under-represented because the police, if they even get involved in it, are easily paid off to let you go provided you didn't hit anyone else. Checkpoints are easily circumvented and serve more as bribe-collection-stations than they do of actually enforcing anything.

But recently a foreigner was involved in a drunk-driving crash and it made the rounds on social media and of course, it encouraging a public outcry about foreigners behaving badly in Thailand. This is starting to make me upset because the locals are complete hypocrites to suggest that this is a foreigner-related problem.

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They were very quick to point out that the driver of the SUV was British and then went into very specific details about his BAC (blood alcohol level) and the various posts and articles I have seen about this seem to be provoking some sort of anti-foreigner sentiment in the audience, who responds in turn in the comments, some people calling to "kick all foreigners out" and other such nonsense.

The articles don't raise the fact that Thailand has top-3 most dangerous roads in the world and rank sometimes number one in the world for road deaths per capita. It is simply pointing the finger at the nasty, badly-behaved foreigners who simply cannot act right while visiting.

I will admit that I did find it rather amusing and a "SMH" moment when the driver of the car wasn't just under the influence but he tried to outrun the police in gridlocked traffic in Phuket all while not wearing a shirt. Not a great look, this is for certain.

his BAC (blood alcohol concentration) was 0.19 or 19% and this is admittedly, extremely high. While it varies greatly from place-to-place the level you achieve in USA for DUI is .08 or 8% so yeah, he was pretty wrecked. 0.40 is widely considered a lethal BAC so dude was halfway there!

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_{encountering something like this on your taxi ride home is far more common than it should be}

I am in no way condoning this British man's behavior but these articles are stoking a fire that really should not be stoked. The amount of people that are drink-driving on a daily basis in the country is exceptionally high because in order to get busted for it, you kind of have to do exactly what this guy did: You have to try to outrun the police like a dipshit. I know people that drive to and from the bars on a daily basis and have slight accidents on their motorbikes on a regular basis yet are never busted. They operate a vehicle without any fear whatsoever of getting "busted" and this is the real problem. I have also gotten a ride from a Thai guy once in a pickup truck and he was hammered drunk (I didn't realize this when I got it), he also was a police officer so I really didn't expect this to be the case.

These articles and social media posts are only damaging to all involved because at the moment Thailand is experiencing never-before-seen drops in tourism that the country desperately needs for its GDP. Instilling the population with an untrue notion of "foreigners bad!" is not the sort of attitude that they need to be conveying in the media at this time, especially when you look at the bigger picture, the foreigners are a "drop in the bucket" compared to what the real problem is. The real problem is there is not real enforcement of any sort as far as road rules are concerned even when the country has top-3 road deaths in the entire world. This stat about the danger of the roads is NOT because of visiting foreigners.

I also understand that people want to go viral and will do anything in order to make that happen. A post or news story about a foreigner crashing and drink-driving is far more juicy than just another crash that is so common in Thailand that it isn't even really newsworthy. There is also the fact that any articles that would present Thailand or the Thai police in a negative light that originated in Thailand would be shut down by the government and perhaps result in jail. So I guess I can understand why we don't get the real story here.