TRANG — Bad luck turned to true misfortune for a truck driver who could only watch helplessly as locals robbed him of 600,000 baht in rice after his 10-wheeled truck overturned in Huai Yot district early Tuesday.
Some of the rice are placed on the road after a 10-wheeler truck carrying 700 rice sacks skided off road in Trang province on Tuesday morning and bystanders stole about 100 of them. (Photo by Methee Muangkaew)
Salee Kingchan, 43, said he was driving on highway No. 403 to deliver 700 sacks of milled rice to a warehouse in Trang province when a tractor-trailer cut him off at 5am, causing his 10-wheeler to skid into a ditch and overturn at the 105km marker.
Truck driver Salee Kingchan: Failed to resist greedy stealers.
The trailer driver was driving on the right hand lane and mistook an electric sign board ahead of him for a police checkpoint and suddenly swerved his vehicle into the left lane to avoid arrest, Mr Salee said.
After the accident, some of the sacks of rice scattered across the roadway and local residents who witnessed the incident began picking up and taking home one or two sacks each.
Mr Salee said he begged the locals not to steal the rice, saying it belonged to his employer, who operates a rice mill in Surin. He told them he would be held accountable for the lost goods. But greed prevailed, he said: No one cared and everyone continued looting his truck. An estimated 100 sacks of rice worth more than 600,000 baht had been stolen, he added.
The Chanthaburi native said that even when patrol police showed up, some villagers still were waiting for a chance to snatch a sack or two of rice.
Mr Salee asked local police to take legal action against the opportunists and bring back the stolen rice.