A video going viral on Thai social media today shows a young Thai man driving a motorbike on a a big, busy main road while texting.
A rear-facing dashcam captures him bouncing off the back of the car in front of him because he was not looking up. Thankfully, he was okay and stood up from the wreck of his bike a minute later, just as the car behind him screeched to a halt to avoid hitting him.
The clip, which was shared 28,000 times, including shares by many big Thai viral Facebook pages today, was posted by the driver of the damaged car, Praphop Chungyampin, who wrote this caption, translated from Thai: #HeadsDownSociety Didn’t care at the time. Played with phone while driving a motorbike. And no helmet! I was just driving normally, and I had to waste time fixing my car. If I was driving a ten-wheeler, the guy would have been at the temple’s crematorium now.”
It was this dude’s lucky day but, as Thai commenters were saying, “This happened to me too. I don’t understand why they’re so addicted to games and smartphones. They’re afraid they will miss out on their games and chats — but they’re not afraid to die! Oh, human.”
While it is illegal to drive a motorbike without a helmet in Thailand, the punishment is only a fine of THB500 maximum. There was no mention of charges being pressed against this man.
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