Fifteen-year-old boys with no licence race each other home when school ends, while girls ride three on a bike with cellphones in hand and laugh at the fun. Big-bike groups coming down the mountain accelerate from their “slow” of 80kph, and specially adapted racing pickups try to stick with them. No one wears a helmet, many bikes have no licence plates and several drivers are too young be legal. All this in a village with a school, kindergarten, shops, garages, food stalls and a busy marketplace – but no speed-limit signs or speed bumps. This is Thailand’s real up-country world of traffic use and abuse.

Source: The Nation Bangkok December 09, 2017 20:15 UTC