Take a U-turn on mindless voyeurism
Amateur video clips taken with smartphones or dashboard-mounted cameras have now become big news items. I suppose once in a while these cameras provide important evidence when a crime has taken place, probably more useful than even an eyewitness account. But to dedicate an entire segment of the morning news to smartphone video clips is rather disconcerting. Most of the time these clips are going to show people slapping each other in the marketplace or something equally grotesque.
Being in the business of news, I have no choice but to follow the programme to see what people are up to, and what they are going to talk about each day. But the fact that it shows people — Thai people — at their worst gives you a really negative start to the day.
Violence apart, this particular news segment almost always shows a clip or two of road accidents.
It makes me wonder why so many people put cameras on their dashboards, often inadvertently capturing images of mad drivers causing accidents that provide daily fodder for the programme.
You are shown drivers chasing each other and finally smashing into a road divider or falling into a ditch. You see angry motorists or motorcyclists bringing out their knives and attempting to deface the other vehicle. You see motorcycles being hit by cars, riders being thrown across the street, ending up dead or severely injured. You are shown these images again. And again. And again. Just in case you missed it the first time, here it is again. The errant vehicle is even circled so you don’t miss that big moment of impact. Sometimes that horrific accident is replayed in slow motion, so you have every agonising moment etched in your memory forever. Or at least the entire day.
More often than not, the motorcycle caught in an accident will be going in the wrong direction, or cutting across lanes, or making a U-turn without looking. A speeding driver that has the right of way hits the motorcycle, and the rider flies through the air, landing several metres away.
I feel sorry for the dead or injured, of course, but I also feel sorry for the poor motorist who has caused injury, or even death, through no fault of his own. And I’m not just talking about a single incident. Time and time again, similar accidents occur, to be replayed on national TV for viewers to watch and gasp.
It has almost become as macabre as I imagine watching gladiators in The Colosseum in Rome would have been. I sometimes want to shout out to all those viewers with their eyes glued to the television screens and say, “Stop it! Don’t you know that poor person has just died before your very eyes?”
And I want to ask the producers whether they would keep replaying the footage if it had been a member of their own family involved.
It is sad to see that humankind has stooped to this form of voyeurism packaged as “news”.
What also strikes me after watching these daily road accidents is that most of them could be prevented quite easily. That is also the saddest thing about it. Which, of course, brings me back to my pet peeve — Thais’ lack of driving skills and a sense of safety and responsibility.
I am not going to go into the uselessness of Thai driving tests for fear of repeating myself. Assuming that people know how to drive by the time they are let loose on the roads with their driver’s licence, what they need is a sense of responsibility towards others and themselves. This, however, is a quality that Thais often lack.
“No U-turn” means you shouldn’t do a U-turn if a policeman is standing nearby. “No Parking” means park at your own risk. How often do you see motorcycles, or even cars, heading down the wrong side of the road, simply because motorists are too lazy U-turn?
Just last weekend, as I was driving on the left lane of the expressway, a Honda CR-V cut right in front of me from the far right lane in order to take the turnoff towards Ram Intra. Did the driver assume that I would brake in time or that he was fast enough to make the risky last-minute manoeuvre? Who in his right mind would do a stupid thing like that?
Isn’t it time we take responsibility for our actions and show some regard for rules and regulations? We keep talking about the glorious future of Thailand. But you can’t compose a symphony unless you know your “do-re-mis” first.
“You see motorcycles being hit by cars, riders being thrown across the street...”