[The photo today isn't of a quality I'd prefer, but I use a reasonably simple camera - and I didn't feel like crossing Second Road at 01:00 in the morning. I also cropped it some to show the detail.]Fortunately other than my audio witnessing of an accident - if you could even call it witnessing - I've only seen the aftermath of road mishaps, and thankfully very few of those. That's surprising, since I'm not at all sure many Thai have a grip on the concept of why those lines are painted on the pavement. If nothing else, it indicates a level of awareness while driving - or extreme luck, one or the other. I'll get back to you when I have a better idea. But as for the picture above:
One night along Second Road in Pattaya shortly past 1:00am a woman had parallel parked after laboriously maneuvering her car into the open space along the curb by doing what my Singaporean friend calls "Chinese Aerobics" (that's 20 minutes of parallel parking) and had evidently thought her car was going to wait for her while she got out of it, for whatever reason - even though she hadn't shut off the engine or gotten it past "reverse" into "park".
It didn't.
No sooner had she opened the door and put a foot out, it began to creep backwards. Because of the angle she'd left the wheels in it first backed up to the curb, and then climbed over it. The few folks in its path jumped out of the way and the car continued to back up until the front wheels prevented it from hitting the roll-down door of The Munch Shack.
The good news is the woman was quick enough to get her legs out of the way before they were caught and broken between door and curb, although she was shrieking enough to attract quite a bit of attention from people nearby; one young man being kind enough to lean in and shut the engine off for her as she took in the reality of her situation with a combination of anguish and shock.
I'm still wondering what the one farang to the left in the photo is doing. Is he looking for his pack of cigarettes or doing an impromptu breast self-examination? Guesses are welcome in the comments section below.
I was going to guess that he's feeling for his glasses.. but I think they 're resting on his forehead.. so I've got to go with your choice and say breast self-exam.
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