Women Drivers in Thailand

How many times have you been driving down the expressway in the fast outside lane, only to be jammed up behind a slow driver? Odds are 90 to 1 that it is a woman driver talking on the phone. She will be totally oblivious to everyone and everything around her while she gabbles on about the latest shoes she bought, or some such.

I am no misogynist. I love women as long as they are not behind the wheel of a car. I don’t know if it’s the hair dryers they sit under at the hairdressers that fries their brains. Or perhaps it is spending too much time on the mobile phone and the radio waves scramble them. But there is one thing for sure. Once they get into a car their brains stop working and they are in a world of their own.

What really steams me up are the women who steadfastly refuse to give way. They seem to think that they have the right of way simply because they are women. They will speed up as soon as they see you trying to change lanes and try to cut you off. I have come up with a simple solution though guys. It’s time for some macho driving here. Just swing in hard and then stomp on the brakes. That scares them into submission! And if they do happen to slam into you, they are in the wrong and have to pay. Perhaps that would teach them a lesson. It hasn’t happened to me yet, but my car is heavily insured, so no worries.

You think I am being too hard ladies? I bet many of our male reader can tell us horror stories. But here are a couple to illustrate.

I was driving to work the other day up an overpass bridge when the car in front of me suddenly stopped. I slammed on the brakes and stopped inches from her back bumper, so I could see clearly what was happening. The driver, a woman of course, had a mobile phone jammed in one ear, and a young child of about 3 or 4 in the front seat that was grabbing the wheel. She had to stop so that she could fend the kid off. Would she hang up the phone and attend to her driving? No way! I pulled around her and tried to get away from her on the other lane. But a few minutes later she drove up beside me with the phone still stuck firmly to her ear. The kid was still jumping up and down on the front seat without a seat belt. Don’t these women love their kids? If they did, and thought about it, they might realize how dangerous they are to their kids and other people on the road.

Then there was the young teenager, couldn’t have been more than 18, driving a brand new VW bug. I turned off Rachadapisek Road into a small soi (land) that would fit only one car. She had just about reached my end of the soi when I pulled in. Two other cars pulled in behind me and there was no way I could reverse to let her finish exiting the small soi. So I gestured for her to retreat.

Well, did that get her goat! She had the right of way! She was a female! And I could see her mother sitting beside her complaining and probably riling her up even more. In the end, she did start to back up, but it was a very slow, painful process. She didn’t turn her head to look behind her as any experienced driver would do. No. She kept looking in her rear vision mirrors while she backed up a few inches and then stopped to check her positioning. I swear it took her almost 5 minutes to back up the 30-meter soi.

That would have been fine, but by then I think her mother had been complaining so long and loud that when she got to the end of the soi, she stopped and refused to budge. We couldn’t exit and she would not go back enough to let us. We sat there at a stalemate glaring daggers at each other. I even got out of the car to ask her politely, at first, to move. No use. The manager of the restaurant I was going to came out and asked her politely. A soi dweller asked her. Nope. She just would not budge.

Meanwhile, the two cars behind me joined the fray. She still refused to move. So in the end, the three of us had to back up into the oncoming traffic on Rachadapisek while this little princess smugly drove out of the soi. She even had the gall to look at me like it was all my fault! Women!

I wrote a story a couple of years ago for a local farang (foreigner) magazine about how I got my Thai driver’s license. The Land Transport Department stressed repeatedly during the morning lecture how they are no longer corrupt they do not take bribes any more to issue licenses. That’s all very well. Now, isn’t it time they tested people properly and only pass those that are capable of driving safely? Currently, their driving test is a joke. They even give you seven, yes count them, seven gear changes to reverse into a parking spot. The driving test staff were amazed that I did it in one go. The woman before me had failed with eight gear changes, and the woman after me gave up after ten changes. At least those two women didn’t get on the road that day.

My wife keeps pestering me to buy her a car. I’m calling my insurance agent first to double my life insurance before I even consider my wife’s request. Maybe we men should just stop buying our women cars. That might reduce the number of female drivers considerably and we could all relax and enjoy driving. A nice dream, but try telling that to your wife!

© Marc Holt. All rights reserved by the author.