Like many Bangkok office employees, Amornthep Chuenchailek commutes to work by car. But twice a week, the 36 year old gets together with a few cyclist friends to ride the popular “Choc Ville” route on Ratchada-Ram Intra Road in the city’s northeast.
The night of May 4 was just like any other for Mr Amornthep and his friends, Thanyakorn Densirimongkol and Nikhom Chenpimy. They jumped on their bikes and set off on their regular route, along with six other cyclists pedalling behind them.
A short time later, a car came speeding up behind the group.
“I heard the car behind us brake one time, but I didn’t think it was anything unusual,” Mr Amornthep said.
“Then I heard it brake a second time. This time it was closer. And in the blink of an eye, I was flying through the air.”
Mr Amornthep suffered minor injuries to his shoulders, legs and torso as the car ploughed into the cyclists, but he remained conscious. As he looked around, he saw his fellow riders lying on the road, covered in blood.
Mr Nikhom suffered a broken hip and remains in hospital.
Thanyakorn, 31, did not survive.
The driver of the car, later identified as 23-year-old Saran Inthanin, fled the scene but later surrendered to police after his identity was publicly revealed by online sleuths.
“I am not going to be on the road with a bicycle again until the law changes to make it safer,” Mr Amornthep said.
Crime scene: Francisco Villa had been cycling for five years when he was killed.
‘I WILL HIT THEM ALL’
A day before Thanyakorn was killed, a drunken driver knocked down a group of cyclists in Chiang Mai. Three died and three others were injured.
University student Phatchuda Chairuan, 23, has been charged with reckless driving causing death and injury after she ploughed her car into the members of the Sua San Sai cycling club. The charge carries a maximum jail term of 10 years and a fine of up to 20,000 baht.
Ms Phatchuda was found to be above the legal blood alcohol limit, having been on her way home from a party when the crash happened.
The two fatal accidents in as many days stirred an outpouring of public anger — both from motorists and the cycling community.
One man from Phayao province posted a particularly vehement message on Facebook expressing his displeasure with recreational cyclists who use public roads.
“Even if she [Ms Phatchuda] was drunk while driving, she should have been able to hit a power post. This is the road, not a place for exercise. Why don’t you all go ride your bicycles in the school yard?” the poster wrote.
“Don’t cause bad traffic. You guys don’t even pay tax. You take over the whole road. Is your father the owner of the road? Wait until I get first-class insurance for my car, I will hit them all.”
Angered by the comment, internet users managed to track down where the man worked and sent a letter to his employer. He was fired immediately as a result of what his company said was an inappropriate comment.
Another man from Pattaya posted a similar message on Facebook, but quickly deleted it and apologised after a furious public backlash.
Solidarity: Members of a cycling club in Bangkok pay their respects at the funeral of Thanyakorn Densirimongkol.
CYCLISTS' GRAVEYARD
Both the national and provincial governments have recently been pushing Thailand as a cyclist-friendly destination. But with a recent string of fatal accidents involving both local and foreign cyclists, the country has become known on many online forums as a “cyclists' graveyard”.
In February this year, Chilean cyclist Juan Francisco Guillermo Villa, 48, was nearing the end of his five-year attempt to break the Guinness World Record for cross-continental cycling. He was accompanied by his wife, Baoling, aka Ng Poh Leng, 40, and his two-year-old son, Lukas.
While they were on Mittraphap Road in Nakhon Ratchasima province, the family was hit by a pickup truck attempting a reckless overtaking manouevre. Villa was killed, his wife and son injured.
That followed a similar tragedy in February 2013, when British couple Marry Thompson and Peter Root were on a round-the-world cycling trip. While passing through Phanom Sarakham district of Chachoengsao province, the couple were hit by a pickup truck whose driver was bending down to pick up his hat. The truck veered into the shoulder of the road where Root and Thompson were cycling, killing them both.
The driver in the case of the British couple was handed a suspended two-year sentence and fined 1,000 baht. The driver who killed Villa was given a one-year suspended sentence and fined 7,500 baht.
SHARING THE ROAD
Last Saturday, members of the Thai Cycling for Health Association, led by the group’s vice-president Santi Opaspakornkij, gathered at Sanam Luang to stage a protest, calling for better cyclist safety. About 400 cyclists attended, lying on the ground with their bikes to mimic the dead.
The activity was part of the association’s long battle to push cyclist safety onto the national agenda. Members argue all cyclists should be able to use public roads safely.
“Cyclists shouldn’t have to hide on the side of the road out of fear as though we are doing something wrong. We should be able to use the road just like every other road user. After all, we are part of the road too,” Mr Santi explained.
He accepted that the problem was not up to any particular group to solve, but rather a larger social problem about attitudes to road safety and law enforcement.
“No one wants any of these [fatal accidents] to happen,” Mr Santi said.
In the wake of this month’s cyclist deaths, there have been growing calls for a review of the country’s lax traffic laws. But Mr Santi believes strengthening the law is the wrong approach. “It is far more important to enforce the laws that we already have, as that will be a more sustainable way to solve the problem,” he said.
Mr Santi pointed to other major cities across the world where cars and bicycles share road space. He said many of these cities had not accepted bicycles easily, and it has taken more than just the creation of new laws or dedicated bicycle lanes. Instead, it’s been about the cycling community standing up and fighting for acceptance and for their right to use the road.
“Protest and confrontation between cyclists and motorists has been used all over the world,” he said.
“The approach that cyclists in many Western countries have used is called Critical Mass, which is far stronger and more violent than us laying on the ground to ask for what we want.”
Critical Mass is a global movement that organises gatherings of large numbers of cyclists — often in the thousands — to ride at the same time, taking over entire roads and blocking access to motorised transport.
Thailand has enough cyclists to conduct a similar movement here, but Mr Santi thinks a non-confrontational compromise is the best way forward.
“Our goal is to push for safety among cyclists. We will do anything to get what we are already supposed to have, which is safety,” he said. “If nothing happens, the Critical Mass movement might be the option, but we will choose an approach that causes the least impact on society.”
United front: About 70 cyclists gather at the Interior Ministry to submit a petition to Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda demanding safer roads and justice for accident victims.
GHOST RIDERS
While many cyclists are coming out to campaign for road safety, many of them are recreational, and often middle-class, riders. But there is an often-overlooked group which does not belong to any of the country’s burgeoning bicycle clubs and which lacks a political voice — those for whom bicycles are the only available form of transport. Thongchai Panswad, president and founder of the Thailand Cycling Club, said these cyclists are a large but mostly silent group.
“They are also on the road and they happen to be the majority of people who are on two wheels, but for some reason they are forgotten,” Mr Thongchai said. “Since they are more frequent road users, they are involved in the majority of accidents. They also need to be safe on the road.”
While hardcore recreational cyclists have been vocal in their requests for bicycle lanes, these everyday bike users have more need for things like proper street lighting and convenient parking areas.
According to Mr Thongchai, the “unseen” bicycle riders are mostly housewives and people who live in rural areas. They ride at least two kilometres per day just to do simple tasks like shopping or visiting friends.
Mr Thongchai’s research also found that 80% of road accidents involving bicycles happen on main highways.
Like Mr Santi, he believes the only real solution to the problem is to encourage police to enforce traffic laws. He said this would benefit not only cyclists, but all road users.
LAX ENFORCEMENT
Suthon Anakul, director of the traffic engineering office at City Hall’s traffic and transportation department, told Spectrum that since 2010, 31 different dedicated bicycle lanes have been created across the city, covering about 232 kilometres.
But with law enforcement lax, the lanes have simply been used as car parking areas, taxi and tuk-tuk stands and hubs for street food vendors. For those caught breaching the law, the maximum penalty is a 1,000-baht fine.
The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration recently opened the Waree Pirom bicycle park in the city’s northeast, which features a four kilometre dedicated bike track. But the general consensus is that the first phase of the BMA’s efforts to make Bangkok a bicycle-friendly city has failed.
Pol Maj Gen Kosin Hintao, deputy commissioner of the Central Investigation Bureau, is also the manager of a police programme for traffic accident prevention and solutions, funded by the Thai Health Promotion Foundation.
He conducted research in 15 provinces, finding a total of 13,259 road accidents last year. Of those, bicycles were involved in only 0.18%, or 24 cases.
Despite the low percentage, Pol Maj Gen Kosin said most cyclists did not survive the accidents and it was likely many cases went unreported.
BMA research found that the chance of a collision leading to the death of a cyclist was about 85% on main roads where cars drove at speeds of 80km/h or more. On smaller roads where cars drive at 30km/h or less, the chance of a collision resulting in the death of a cyclist drops to 15%.
The BMA already has plans to expand its network of bike lanes, with another 39 routes in the pipeline. For areas where bike lanes are not available, the administration is planning to create shared lanes to allow all types of vehicles to operate on the same road.
“We are trying to listen to everyone and make sure they are all happy and feel safe to be on the road,” Mr Suthon said. “Not just cyclists, but everyone should have the right to use to roads safely and conveniently.”
Changing lanes: Above and right, City Hall in Bangkok has tried to create cycling routes, most of which are inadequate or unsafe, and now new ideas are being discussed to make cycling in the city safer.
SAFE HAVEN
Mr Santi said Thailand will not be ready to be a cycling destination until safety and convenience can be implemented as part of the national agenda. He criticised government bodies such as the BMA for encouraging bicycle use without doing anything to guarantee cyclists’ safety.
“I support the BMA for creating dedicated bike lanes, but I disagree with the design of the lanes since they are not truly safe,” Mr Santi said. “Motorcycles and food carts can easily access the lanes, and nothing is done to prevent them from doing so.”
Mr Santi also welcomed the BMA’s “Pun Pun” bicycle sharing network, which opened in 2012 and allows people to borrow a bicycle from stations scattered across the city and return it to another station. But he said the bicycle stations had been built to serve advertisers instead of bicycle users.
“Other cities such as Jakarta have been able to block roads to make them car-free and allow cyclists to ride in safety. The best we can do in Bangkok is to block a street and make it a shopping street,” Mr Santi said.
According to the Thailand Cycling Club, there are about 100,000 recreational cyclists across the country, placing them in the minority of road users. But while he was unable to provide an exact figure on the number of everyday cyclists, Mr Thongchai estimated that almost every household in the kingdom outside of Bangkok had access to a bicycle.
He said if the law was strictly enforced, Thailand would become a haven for all cyclists.
“Thai people, especially those upcountry, are genuinely friendly. There is good food and beautiful scenery along the way. Too bad it is not safe to ride on the main road, which I hope will one day change,” he said. n
Protest: Cyclists lie down and pretend to be dead as part of a road safety campaign at Sanam Laung in Bangkok.