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Money matters: Safe as houses (part 1)
Graham Macdonald
MBMG International Ltd.
Buying property is by far the safest investment you can
make. House prices will never fall like share prices. This is the advice
offered by countless estate agents around the globe. In the absence of
attractive investment opportunities elsewhere, home buyers have needed
little encouragement: from London to Madrid and from Washington to Sydney,
rising house prices have been the hot topic of conversation at dinner
parties. Over the past seven years, house prices in many countries have
risen at their fastest rate ever in real terms. We’ve seen forecasting
that suggest that the DJIA could be in for a fall of 70% or more - that
could never happen to property could it? Could it?
Anytime you want to find the most vulnerable segment
for an implosion of a debt bubble, just identify the main asset that the
lending institutions are using as collateral in making new loans. Recent
history is replete with numerous examples. The banks couldn’t wait to
loan money to the LDCs (lesser developed countries) in the mid 1970’s
because of the fact that governments could always print money if they had
a problem with too much debt.
Walter Wriston of Citibank was the largest proponent of
the theory. They found out the hard way that this was not the panacea that
most bankers thought as these countries used the printing press to
substantially depreciate their currencies. Then the banks loaned money to
the farm belt since it was obvious in the late 1970’s that inflation
would bail out any problems with farmers.
This turned out to be even worse than the LDCs. The
banks were loaning money to a segment of the economy that had no chance to
pay down the debt. The income from the crops they were growing and selling
couldn’t possibly justify the cost of the real estate that was
skyrocketing at the time. At the time, Merrill Lynch even tried to sell a
limited partnership on farmland to its clients. We believe the plan was
stopped in its tracks only by a very sharp client (Mr. Dwayne Andreas,
then CEO of Archer Daniels Midland) who warned them how dangerous it would
be to do the deal with the price of farmland so high relative to the money
the farmers could receive for the crops they grew.
Naturally, this also blew up in the lenders’ faces
and they had to find another segment of the economy to keep the debt
bubble going. Voila, energy! The lenders saw that the OPEC agreement in
the mid 1970’s would be a “no-brainer”, since there were many
forecasts by experts that the price of oil would rise to $100 a barrel and
there would be no problem getting their money back with interest.
“These countries used the
printing press to substantially depreciate their currencies”
This also turned out to be a mistake since the oil price
stopped rising as exploration activities soared and energy users found ways to
alleviate the pain through energy-saving engines and appliances, wood stoves,
sweaters, and whatever else it took to stop the rise in energy in its tracks.
This was followed by massive loans to the “rust belt”
manufacturers in the mid-west, and this turned out to be a mistake also. The
following area of concentration was the junk bonds and LBOs (leveraged buyouts).
Mike Milken was a hero at the time and the banks concurred that they couldn’t
lose this time for sure.
Well, we all know what happened to Mike Milken, and the banks
should have learned another lesson. If the banks consistently found that the
areas and segments that they lent to never seem to work out, you would think
that they would learn to stop concentrating on just one area or segment. But
believe it or not, they never seem to learn that the only reason the collateral
behind the loans rose in value was because the money that was loaned supported
the collateral. What area do you think the most money is being loaned to now?
“Banks were loaning money
to a segment of the economy that had no chance to pay down the debt”
You guessed it, real estate in any form. Houses, apartments,
office buildings, and raw land can’t miss. Everything else seems to be wilting
away, but not real estate! Now, take a guess at what segment dominates domestic
non-financial debt? What area is over 40% of total domestic non-financial debt?
You guessed it - Mortgages! What area now do you think will be the catalyst for
the next deflationary period? You guessed it again - real estate!
Now maybe we are wrong on this, but we are highly confident
in the final outcome even if we are early. We believe that just like the
farmland that became too expensive relative to the prices received from crops,
the price of real estate can’t be justified by the amount of rents received.
We look at this in the same way as the P/E of a common stock.
If the price of the company’s stock is way out of line with earnings, that
stock will eventually decline. The Centre of Economic Policy Research put out a
paper comparing the cost of renting a home to the cost of owning a home. They
looked at the situation just as we do. They concluded that the gap between the
two is now about the largest ever.
Comstock was written up in Barron’s magazine in 1988
discussing this same theme and the gap was wide then, but it is even wider now!
This gap can only be filled by rentals rising or home prices falling. With
vacancies increasing in every area of real estate, we doubt that the gap will be
filled by rents increasing. There is no other solution to this problem except
for housing prices to fall, and that won’t be a pretty picture since it seems
that every homeowner in America has been borrowing money on the equity of their
homes.
The Mortgage Bankers Association of America estimates that
the total volume of mortgage loans in 2002 is a record $2.5 trillion. The
Federal Reserve estimates that homeowners raised $130 billion last year through
home equity loans and lines of credit. (Total cash-outs of all home refinancing
could be as high as $250 billion.) Many of these home equity loans are used in
place of credit card debt since the interest rates are much more favourable.
However, while credit card lenders can only sue a borrower
and request a lien on the property, the problem with home equity loans is that
the bank can seize the property. This would very rarely be a problem with
housing prices going up, and home prices have increased over 40% on average
since 1997, with some areas like New York (especially Long Island), Phoenix, and
Denver increasing much more than the average.
The Mortgage Bankers
Association of America estimates that the total volume of mortgage loans in 2002
is a record $2.5 trillion
However, there are other areas where the home prices
have softened, such as the Midwest (St. Paul, and Indianapolis) and
Southeast. In these areas the banks have their hands full as delinquencies
and foreclosures are rampant. Just last month the U.S. hit a near record
delinquency rate and a record foreclosure rate, with almost all coming
from the areas of soft home prices. If home prices that have been
skyrocketing start to fall we could have a snowball effect and
delinquencies and foreclosures could really get out of hand.
The real estate problem that we’re seeing is not
confined to housing alone, as office buildings and apartments are having
their own problems. Only recently it was reported in the Wall Street
Journal that the U.S. office-vacancy rate rose to 16.2% in the first
quarter. This was the ninth straight quarter of rising vacancies and
declining rents. It started in the first quarter of 2001 along with the
start of the recession, but just like the job market, it seems to have
remained in a recession.
Apartment landlords also saw vacancy rates on average
in the U.S. climb to their highest level in a decade. The
apartment-vacancy rate for the nation’s top-50 metropolitan areas rose
to 6.8% in the first quarter, from 6.3% in the fourth quarter of 2002 and
5.7% a year earlier. Effective rents fell .3% from the fourth quarter and
.1% from a year earlier to $845 a month. Right now real estate and housing
are the pillars of the individual’s investment portfolio, and if that
cracks, it could be the catalyst that throws the U.S. into the same
economic quagmire that it went through 74 years ago.
When you look at the record foreclosures and near
record delinquencies on mortgage debt as well as rising vacancy rates in
every area of real estate you start to come to the conclusion that the
banks and other lending institutions could be making the same mistake
again.
This article will be concluded next week, but our full
128 page report on the property markets around the world is available upon
request.
The above data and research was compiled from sources believed to be
reliable. However, neither MBMG International Ltd nor its officers can
accept any liability for any errors or omissions in the above article nor
bear any responsibility for any losses achieved as a result of any actions
taken or not taken as a consequence of reading the above article. For more
information please contact Graham Macdonald on graham@
mbmg-international.com
Snap Shots: Action stations for Still Life photography
by Harry Flashman
One of the most amazingly creative and satisfying
aspects of photography can be Still Life shooting. The ability to position
and light a subject to produce a pleasing result can fill up an entire
day. In fact, the pros can take a couple of days to get a still life shot
just right. That’s right. A couple of days! No exaggeration.
 You
see, there are so many aspects to be covered in still life photography. It
is not just a case of placing the subject on a sheet of paper and pushing
the button. Still life photography teaches you every important aspect of
the artistic side of photography, as well as honing up your basic
photographic skills.
The first good thing about still life shots is the
subject doesn’t complain and tell you to hurry up and “Is my mascara
smudged?” You can also just pick up the subject and move it in any
direction to suit the shot. You don’t have to ask for permission. Oh
yes, there are many advantages in having a silent subject!
Let us begin with lighting. The secret to all still
life shots is to have two light sources. This can be daylight plus flash,
two flashes, electric lights, daylight and a mirror - but you need two.
One to basically light the subject and the other to light the background.
Lighting the background isolates the subject from the
background and makes your subject the “hero” in the shot.
The other secret in the lighting is to produce a
diffused light source. With un-diffused light, you will get far too many
distracting shadows, which with small tabletop objects can ruin the
overall effect. You can diffuse your lighting by shining it through some
scrim cloth, transparent net curtain material or through some frosted
plexiglass - the sort of material they have over fluoro lights, for
example.
The next important item in still life photography is
your own eye. You will find there are even books on the subject, but what
you have to do is to look at your tabletop and arrange the items in a
manner that is pleasing to your eye. Do you want them overlapping, or at
some distance from each other? Generally there is one dominant item -
bring it to the foreground and then arrange the supporting items after
that. Some overlap generally works well.
Having got that far and you are now pleased with the
composition, you then have to look through your camera. Help! It doesn’t
look the same as it did with the naked eye! What’s gone wrong? It is
because of the differences between the lens and your eye’s focal length.
You now have to look through the camera and adjust the tabletop items to
produce the pleasing composition you saw with your own eye. Yes, this
takes time, and now you can begin to see why the pros take so long!
After you have the composition to your satisfaction -
you have to light it. This is where daylight or tungsten light becomes
easier than flash - at least with the sun’s (filtered) rays or diffused
tungsten you can see what you are going to get. (In the pro studio, the
flash units have tungsten “modelling” lights so that you can get the
idea of how the flash will illuminate the subject, before popping the
shutter.)
Generally, I light the background first, then bring in
the foreground (subject) lighting, carefully noting “spill” of one
light source into the area of the other. Again, this can take hours! In
fact, you can change the whole look of a table-top scene just with the
balance of lighting used.
Remember too, that the exposure settings used in the
camera depend upon the foreground lighting (not the background), and for
most situations (but not all) the background can be brighter than the
foreground, to “wash” it out a little. But again this is
experimentation.
No, still life photography is not easy, even though it sounds
straightforward. Perhaps it is easier to help the model fix her mascara
after all!
Modern Medicine: Irritable Bowel Syndrome
and how to pacify it
by Dr. Iain Corness, Consultant
Irritable Bowel Syndrome, or IBS since we like
acronyms, is an interesting condition. It is not a disease, and in fact tests
for abnormalities come back reported as ‘negative’. Does this mean that IBS
isn’t really in the bowel, but all ‘in the brain’?
Unfortunately, there is a school of thought in medicine that
says that if all the tests come back negative, the condition is not real, only
imagined. This is totally wrong. There are many conditions for which we did not
know (or had not developed) the right tests. Until the last couple of decades,
we did not have a definitive test for HIV - but the people had the ailment, even
though we couldn’t identify it. We doctors must never forget to treat the
patient, not the test results. (I thank my eldest son, Dr. Jonathan, for that
sage little homily.)
Getting back to IBS, I repeat that it is not a disease, but
can be a very debilitating condition, characterized by some of the following
(but not necessarily all) symptoms: cramping pain in the stomach area, painful
diarrhoea or constipation (now that’s confusing), mucus in the stool, swollen
or bloated belly, increased gas and the feeling that you are unable to totally
empty your bowel.
If IBS is not a disease, what is it? It is a functional
disorder, which means that the bowel doesn’t work as it should. What appears
to happen is that the nerves (called Auerbach’s Plexus from memory) and the
muscles of the bowel are extra-sensitive. For example, the muscles may contract
too much when you eat. These contractions can cause cramping and diarrhoea or
rapid bowel movement during, or shortly after, a meal. Or the nerves can be
overly sensitive to the dilating of the bowel (because of gas, for example).
Cramping or pain can be the result.
Any condition that does not have some nice finger-pointing
test result is then too often put into the ‘psychosomatic’ pigeonhole.
“It’s caused by stress,” say the non-medical ‘experts’. In actual
fact, emotional stress will not cause anyone to develop IBS. However, if you
already have IBS, stress can trigger the symptoms, just as it can for a myriad
of medical conditions. Stress does not cause the problem, but it can make it
appear worse. In fact, the bowel can overreact to all sorts of things, including
food, exercise, and hormones (women with IBS have more problems around the time
of their menses).
Food and drinks that tend to cause symptoms include milk
products, chocolate, alcohol, caffeine, carbonated drinks, and fatty items. In
some cases, even eating a large meal will trigger symptoms.
Another complicating factor is that the symptoms of IBS can
also mimic other gastro-intestinal problems, which is why in the ‘work-up’
there may be a barium enema or lower GI (gastro-intestinal) series. Barium is a
thick liquid that makes the bowel show up on X-ray. Another examination is an
Endoscopy. This is where the doctor inserts the ‘black snake’ into your
bowel and can look through the small camera on the tip.
Although there is no ‘magic bullet’ to cure someone of
IBS, there is treatment that will help. This includes dietary changes,
anti-spasmodic medicine and stress relief if you are a highly stressed person.
As a starter, fibre (found in bran, bread, cereal, beans, fruit, and vegetables)
reduces IBS symptoms - especially constipation, because it makes stool soft and
easier to pass, but you have to identify the ‘triggers’. (And it ain’t Roy
Rogers!)
 Heart to Heart with Hillary
Dear Hillary,
Can nothing be done about the song taew drivers? For a tourist city they give
the place a bad name with their stand-over tactics and demands for fares much
greater than should be the case. No wonder the foreign tourists look for taxis,
but unless they have their wits about them they will again be quoted exorbitant
fares, rather than using the meters. For a real fun time, try a tuk-tuk which
will attempt to take you straight to the nearest jewelry shop that pays for
their fuel. Until our city fathers meet the song taew monopoly head on and
produce a real public transport system, this will always be a third world
tourist destination.
“Where you go?”
Dear “Where you go?”
Unfortunately you are quite correct, my Petal. The song taews which do not have
any fixed or marked destination will always be a turn-off for tourists, as the
majority of the drivers do not speak another language. Why would you expect them
to get on transport with unmarked destinations? Perhaps it is time for the TAT
to get involved and issue ‘tourist bus’ licenses for drivers who meet a
minimum standard in communication. Hillary has given up with the song taews,
taxis and tuk-tuks, and uses motorcycle taxis when possible (still none in
Chiang Mai). They appear to be a friendlier bunch and will heed the
“cha-cha” (slowly) instructions. You do have to barter first, but that’s
part of the fun of living in the ‘third world’.
Dear Hillary,
This is a very embarrassing problem, so you will forgive me if I don’t attach
my real name. I have suffered from night-time wind for many years. My mother
even tells me I had it when a child. Living on my own it is not too much of a
problem as I can let one rip whenever I like, but I have recently taken up with
a lovely young lady and it is obvious that she would be willing to spend the
night with me. It is me that is holding back, as I don’t want her to hear the
Charge of the Light Brigade and be put off by the musical items that my bottom
can produce.
Flatulent
Dear Flatulent,
You have my sympathies, as opposed to my symphonies. You have several choices,
however, Flatulent my dear. You can opt to remain celibate and join the clergy,
but your flatulent fits might be misunderstood as music to some cleric’s ears.
You can train yourself to be able to play the Charge of the Light Brigade, and
make money from your musical bottom. A French entertainer did just that. Called
Le Petomaine he could extinguish a candle at one metre. You can have a look at
your diet and avoid milk products and green beans and see if that helps.
Finally, you can always get the young lady concerned to ‘burp’ you before
settling down for the night. That is what your mother would have done.
Dear Hillary,
Every day I see these Thai girls sitting sideways
on the rear of some motorcycle and wonder where did this custom come from? China
adopted bicycles, but Thailand seems to have adopted the motorcycle. Do you know
why this is so, and when did the Thai girls start to ride pillion in this
strange way? I must say I have never seen one fall off, but I suppose they must.
Any answers are appreciated.
Pillion Pete
Dear Pillion Pete,
An interesting observation. China, I believe, adopted pedal power because of
financial reasons, while the Thais have always been better off and adopted the
gasoline engine for boats, cars, trucks and personal transport (motorcycles)
very early in the history of the gasoline engine. The Thailand infrastructure
was also well developed early, so the itinerant motorcyclist could always find a
gas station to get his or her fuel. However, the art of riding sideways came
long before the nasty two strokes from Japan (smelly motorcycles and karaoke
bars were Japan’s revenge after the war, I am sure) as Thai women have always
been very aware of their femininity. Figure hugging sarongs and skirts are not
new. They were wearing them over 100 years ago, and try slinging your leg over a
buffalo in a tight skirt, Pillion Pete my Petal. No, you can’t, so they sat
side-saddle on the buffaloes. Sitting side-saddle on a motorcycle was a very
natural progression, otherwise the skirt would have to be hoisted around the
waist to get on. Something you men wouldn’t mind, but something the naturally
shy Thai woman would not countenance. Take a look at the clothing the girls are
wearing. Tight skirts means side-saddle, while jeans means sitting astride the
nasty, smelly device. As far as your question, “Do they fall off?” the
simple answer is yes they do, but not because they lost their balance. They only
fall off when the rider (or the person nominally in control of the machine)
loses balance, and down they go, including the two girls sitting opposite each
other, but still side-saddle. Thank you for a ‘real’ question for once!
A Slice of Thai History:
Escape from Bangkok 1945
Part Four: The First Escape
by Duncan steam
In the meantime, their five comrades
who had been spirited away in the night “were taken by auto to the OSS
headquarters located in the palace of the Regent of Siam. The Regents’
elegant dining room table served as an operating table for the two Thai
doctors who worked for hours repairing our injuries. One had received his
training in England and the other in New York. We were obviously in very
good hands; however, there was not much in the way of first aid or medical
equipment,” wrote Harry Smith. He continued, “The food at the palace
was remarkable. It was prepared at a five star hotel about four miles away
and brought on foot by servants using shoulder yokes. We even had ice
cream once!”
The five remained at the palace until midnight the next
day when they boarded an old bus for a trip north. “An Australian who
had escaped from a prisoner of war camp on the Jap railway came with us.
He was just skin and bones and crouched in a corner all the time without
ever speaking. The plan was to proceed to a rendezvous about 150 miles
north of Bangkok.”
They ran into trouble in the centre of the city when
the bus began backfiring. Due to the curfew, the backfiring bus drew the
attention of a Japanese patrol. “The straw curtains on the windows were
held closed while the driver explained to the patrol that he was
transporting prisoners to jail. All the time he kept the starter
engaged...”
The Japanese let the bus continue on its way, but
rather than risk continuing the journey they pulled into an old racetrack
and hid in the abandoned horse stalls. “A runner was sent back and soon
two British-type cars arrived to take us back to the Palace ... The next
night we left Bangkok with a tow truck and a spare bus following along and
travelled several hours north to a small airfield in the village of
Ban-Pe.”
Here they waited for a British DC-3 to take them back
to India and safety. On board the plane was a replacement OSS group. Smith
stated, “The DC-3 had suffered a tear in the fabric of one elevator
during the landing in the rough field and there was a moment of panic
until a piece of cloth and some glue were produced ... Within the hour we
were airborne and headed for home. A refuelling stop was made at Rangoon,
which had just been captured, from the Japanese. Seven hours later we
landed at the Alipore airport in Calcutta.”
Both Smith and Copely spent the next two weeks at the
Escape and Evasion Headquarters in Calcutta. It was necessary for them to
go into hiding for this period of time to protect the Thais who had helped
them escape and until the remaining crew members were safely in the
internment camp. There was always the chance Japanese spies or Indian
sympathisers would find out about their survival and escape and therefore
recognise the extent of the Thai underground network.
Personal Directions: Stress is different things to different people
by Christina Dodd
This week I’d like to share some thoughts on stress
that I have found, as quite often even though we know a certain amount about
stress because we all suffer from it to some degree, it is always a good
idea to get the facts as well.
Sean … writes: “Much research has been conducted into
stress over the last hundred years. Some of the theories behind it are now
settled and accepted; others are still being researched and debated. During
this time, there seems to have been something approaching open warfare
between competing theories and definitions: Views have been passionately
held and aggressively defended.
What complicates this is that intuitively we all feel
that we know what stress is, as it is something we have all experienced. A
definition should therefore be obvious…except that it is not.
Definitions
Hans Selye was one of the founding fathers of stress
research. His view in 1956 was that “stress is not necessarily something bad
– it all depends on how you take it. The stress of exhilarating, creative
successful work is beneficial, while that of failure, humiliation or infection
is detrimental.” Selye believed that the biochemical effects of stress would
be experienced irrespective of whether the situation was positive or negative.
Since then, a great deal of further research has been
conducted, and ideas have moved on. Stress is now viewed as a “bad thing”,
with a range of harmful biochemical and long-term effects. These effects have
rarely been observed in positive situations.
The most commonly accepted definition of stress (mainly
attributed to Richard S Lazarus) is that stress is a condition or feeling
experienced when a person perceives that “demands exceed the personal and
social resources the individual is able to mobilize.”
This is the main definition, although we also recognize that
there is an intertwined instinctive stress response to unexpected events. The
stress response inside us is therefore part instinct and part to do with the
way we think.
Fight-or-Flight
Some of the early research on stress (conducted by Walter
Cannon in 1932) established the existence of the well-known
“fight-or-flight” response. His work showed that when an organism
experiences a shock or perceives a threat, it quickly releases hormones that
help it to survive.
In humans, as in other animals, these hormones help us to
run faster and fight harder. They increase heart rate and blood pressure,
delivering more oxygen and blood sugar to power important muscles. They
increase sweating in an effort to cool these muscles, and help them stay
efficient. They divert blood away from the skin to the core of our bodies,
reducing blood loss if we are damaged. As well as this, these hormones focus
our attention on the threat, to the exclusion of everything else. All of this
significantly improves our ability to survive life-threatening events.
Not only life-threatening events trigger this reaction: We
experience it almost any time we come across something unexpected or something
that frustrates our goals. When the threat is small, our response is small and
we often do not notice it among the many other distractions of a stressful
situation.
Unfortunately, this mobilization of the body for survival
also has negative consequences. In this state, we are excitable, anxious, jumpy
and irritable. This actually reduces our ability to work effectively with other
people. With trembling and a pounding heart, we can find it difficult to
execute precise, controlled skills. The intensity of our focus on survival
interferes with our ability to make fine judgments by drawing information from
many sources. We find ourselves more accident-prone and less able to make good
decisions.
There are very few situations in modern working life where
this response is useful. Most situations benefit from a calm, rational,
controlled and socially sensitive approach. In the short term, we need to keep
this fight-or-flight response under control to be effective in our jobs. In the
long term we need to keep it under control to avoid problems of poor health and
burnout.
Stress is different things to different people. To a
mountaineer it is the challenge of pushing physical resources to the limit by
striving to achieve a demanding goal. To the homeward bound motorist it can be
the hassles of heavy traffic and obnoxious exhaust fumes. To the student it can
be exam pressure.
Most people respond to the word stress in negative ways.
They see it as a destructive, debilitating force. However, not all stress is
negative. The word eustress has been coined to describe positive stress.
Eustress results from exhilarating experiences. It is the type of stress you
are likely to experience when you inherit a large amount of money or receive an
unexpected promotion or reward. Eustress is the stress of winning and
achieving.
Negative stress is distress. It is the stress of losing,
failing, overworking and not coping. Distress affects people in a negative
often harmful manner.
We all experience distress from time to time. It is a
normal, unavoidable part of living.”
Perhaps you are experiencing intense stress right now. Maybe
you have a challenging job with a punishing workload, intense demands and
over-tight deadlines. Or perhaps your boss or clients just keep piling on the
pressure. Maybe problems with your coworkers or your team are making your life
a misery, or perhaps you are just not getting the support you need. Or maybe
you are increasingly exhausted as the things you enjoy about your job are
submerged in a relentless flood of humdrum demands.
Manage both the sources and symptoms of stress and beat job
stress starting now!
Our Stress Management MasterClass shows you how to tackle
these problems at root. Where you have some control over the situation, it
helps you to target the causes of stress quickly and effectively. Where you
have no control, it shows you how to build robust buffers against stress.
You’ll learn how to cope with intense pressure, win back control of your
workload, improve working relationships, and live a happier, more relaxed life.
If you would like to contact me about our Stress Management
Program or indeed any of our business and personal skills programs, then please
email me at Christina.dodd@ asiatrainingassociates.com
Until next time, have a great week!
Editorial Comment: The Shame of Songkran
by
Dr Iain Corness
After many years of attempting to ignore the situation,
the central government finally agreed a couple of years ago that the
Songkran road toll was too high. Various attempts have been made since
then to correct the situation, but not with much success. Amongst these
have been threats of breathalyzers being used to find the drunken drivers
and get them off the road, gas stations not allowed to sell alcohol to
minors, and posting police patrols to make sure motorcycle riders have a
helmet on their heads (as they ride past). The rest of the time, the
helmet, usually of questionable capabilities, is left in the wire carrier
at the front of the machine, or if worn is not done up.
There is always a difference in Thailand between
passing laws and then policing them. Particularly when the law is not
popular with either public or police. So where does the government go from
here?
The first, and dare I say it, very obvious proposal, is
to limit exposure over Songkran. If you stand in the road for 12 hours a
day, you are more likely to be knocked over than someone who only stands
there for one hour a day. Simple logic that everyone can understand.
Currently, Songkran lasts generally around one week, depending upon which
part of the country you are in. So during Songkran you are metaphorically
standing in the middle of the road for seven days. Even greater chance of
getting knocked over.
The answer is some careful gazetting by the government.
Make the third Saturday in April a national day of reverence towards
one’s elders, not a water throwing day. Make the Sunday after the day of
reverence, the national Songkran day for water fights. The same date, all
over the country. Make the Monday after the water fight Sunday a recovery
holiday with no water, and let everyone return to their homes.
In this way there is still a three day Thai New Year,
there is the traditional respect to the elders, an important part of Thai
society, there is a water fight fun day, and a day to recover as well. The
length of time you are left at risk standing in the road is now only one
day.
The end result of this would be a dramatic drop in the
Songkran road toll, with no policemen standing on street corners
attempting to enforce unenforceable legislation on an uninterested
populace. It must be worth a thought. Surely?
The second nettle that the politicians are afraid to
grasp, will have tangible benefits for the future safety of motorcyclists
in Thailand, but not immediately. The government already has the
statistics to show that 80 percent of road deaths are motorcycle riders.
The government has to legislate the minimum standard of helmet approved in
this country. Currently there is either no minimum, or it is so low it is
ludicrous. The plastic crash helmets are suitable to hold ice cream, not
brains.
It is not difficult to find this minimum standard. The
government can adopt the standards as promulgated by the UK, EU, USA or
Australia. There is no testing necessary by the government. Retail outlets
are given 12 months grace, by which time all helmets for sale in Thailand
must meet the minimum standard. The onus on achieving that standard rests
with the manufacturers. Eventually, over the next couple of years, the
helmets worn in this country will all meet that standard, as the ice cream
buckets have a very limited life.
The final point is an amendment to existing legislation
and refers to the wearing of safety helmets. All people carried on a
motorcycle must wear a helmet (and I would not worry about specifying how
many people) and all helmets must be done up. Thais will always go three,
four or five up on a motorcycle until all Thais can afford motor cars. The
government will then have adequately provided for, and protected, the
group most at risk - the 80 percent of fatalities coming off motorcycles
without adequate head protection.
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