The slogan “If you’ve got a $10 head, wear a $10 helmet!” was the advertising catch-cry of the Bell helmet company about 50 years ago. To keep it simple and to bring that to today and to Thailand, I will change that to “If you’ve got a Bt. 100 head, wear a Bt. 100 helmet!”
What started me on this was the sight at lunchtime of five motorcycles on the Number 7 Freeway, driven by (perhaps if they were lucky) 15 year old schoolboys in uniform, with similar aged girls on pillion, and none of the 10 was wearing any helmet at all. Not even a Bt. 100 helmet.
I do find it saddening that parents, who presumably love their children, will allow them to ride motorcycles without protecting their brains. I have even seen a policeman on his motorcycle, wearing the police regulation issue helmet, with his daughter of about 10 years of age with no head protection, on behind him.
Mind you, I will admit that the commonest motorcycle injury is not brain damage (though that can change your life for ever), but is bone fracture and lacerations and abrasions. Those injuries don’t change your life for ever, but they do make the present not much fun!
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a “thing” against motorcycles, and actively raced Moto-X for four years. However, I did wake up one day that I never fell off my car and went back to four wheels.
Seeing the injuries experienced by a mate of mine a couple of weeks back, who was on a social bike ride with friends, makes me think that body armor might not be a bad idea, especially in Thailand where other road users can be more than somewhat negligent.
Now the interesting thing is I wrote this piece six years ago. Nothing has changed.
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