I was intrigued to read an extensive article in this newspaper recently on the whys and wherefores of getting a driver's licence in Thailand. It was a topic that I recently had to experience a second time in my life, and I thought I should add my own two satangs to the topic.
My daughter applied for her driver's licence just before the new year. In preparation for the test, she was required, as indicated in the article, to sit through a four-hour lecture on driving regulations. They make sure you don't just sign your name and leave, and even your toilet visits are timed to no more than 10 minutes each.
At the end of the day, you receive a certificate, and a booklet of traffic regulations, which you go back and memorise to prepare for the theory test. These include details on engine maintenance. All I know about coils, belts and fans is in relation to curly hair, waists and admirers. But that's besides the point.
What the article fails to say is that on the day of the test, you have to be at the venue at 4am.
I'm not joking.
There is a quota of 80 places each day, and if you want to be among that number, you'd better be early in the queue.
We let things run a little late, and it wasn't until 5am that we got there. By then the queue along the pavement in front of the Department of Land Transport (DLT) office was already stretching far into the darkness. We settled in for the wait, sitting down on the dusty curb like the others, armed with a bottle of mosquito spray to keep the buggers away.
At 7am the gates opened and we walked single file inside, lining up again this time in front of the office building. An official announced the sequence in a booming voice, not unlike a school headmaster disciplining school pupils in front of the flagpole. Queue numbers — my daughter got number 57 — and forms were handed out, and everyone tried to complete them awkwardly on their folders or handbags as they stood in line.
At 8.30am the doors opened, and there was more lining up to submit the forms. You then had to watch a videotape of the first set of colour blindness and simulated reflex tests, switching your foot from the accelerator to the brakes as soon as the light turns red, aligning two poles on a screen.
Then a lot more waiting until you are called for the theory test, for which you have to get 45 answers right from a total of 50. It was 11am by that time, and they had announced that even if you had passed your theory test, it was too late to take the practical driving test that day, and we would all have to come back another day.
The next day, we arrived at 8.30am for a 9pm cut-off, and got queue number 27 from a daily quota of 30.
More waiting in a hot shelter, where everyone huddled in one corner to keep out of the sun. Watching the drivers go through their paces, I couldn't help wonder how on earth these people were going to fare on the real roads of Bangkok. Half of them didn't have a clue what they were doing as they struggled to follow the assigned route or reverse park.
The astounding part of the article was an interview with a DLT official who said that the department is not confident enough to test drivers on real roads. "What if the applicants were involved in an accident?" he asked.
I was left with my jaw agape. So they would rather not risk their own examiners on the roads with test drivers, but instead prefer to let them loose afterwards at the risk of all other motorists? What happens after driving licences are issued is no longer their concern.
A few months ago, this esteemed newspaper ran an article that said: "Thailand holds an unenviable record as the world's second most deadly country for road accidents with an average annual death toll of 26,000 people." (It didn't say who held the top position.) Why am I not that surprised?
Statistics from a WHO report a few years back said Thailand had a total of 92.4 road fatalities per 100,000 motor vehicles, compared to the UK's 6.2, the US's 13.6, Singapore's 27.4, or Malaysia's 31.4. I supposed when compared to Sudan's 9370.2, we're not that bad, but I'm not sure that's a desirable comparison.
The same goes for the entire education system, which grades students based on how well they memorise textbooks, rather than whether they can think and analyse, the skills they will need in the real world.
Is there hope for our kids, our roads, our country, our future?
Usnisa Sukhsvasti is the features editor of the Bangkok Post.