Teenage motorbike gangs in Thailand: Just avoid them

When I was a teenager I did some stupid stuff that annoyed people as well so I try to have a bit of sympathy for any teenagers, regardless of their nationality, when I see or hear them doing something annoying like having intentionally lout motorbikes that they race around destroying the peace and quiet everywhere that they go.

I recently found out that these loud modifications that they make to their bikes are technically illegal but just like a lot of things in Thailand, the law doesn't really matter because there are so many ways around it. Also, since these bored teenagers more often than not come from relatively affluent families, they easily pay off the cops with $10 here and $20 there to keep them off their backs.

One thing that I think is common in my home country would be to take these sorts of matters into your own hands and try to stand up to the gangs and chase them off but honestly, especially as a foreigner in this country, this is a very bad idea.

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Its funny when every now and then the government likes to showcase how they are collecting these illegal tailpipes and destroying them. They make sure the media is there and a few head police officers and politicians will have a gala lunch or something celebrating their victory over the motorbike gangs that everyone hates. These jackaloons in the pictures are just as aware as anyone that this will make no difference at all because as soon as they confiscate the pipes, the bike owners will put another one on there right away.

Since the police won't do anything there are a few people out there that are stupid enough to try to reprimand these teens themselves and this is an absolutely terrible idea. There have been lots of reports of people getting in the face of these teens only to have them kick your bike, with you on it, off the road. They spend all of their nights on a bike screwing around on it, they can cause very big problems for you. Recently an Australian man was kicked into a ditch in Chon Buri because he decided to shout at some teenage bike kids. He crashed and later died.

While I am certainly not going to victim blame here, this guy would have likely been fine if he had just put his hands over his ears at the stoplight where the kids were making a ruckus.

I encounter these annoying teens on a regular basis and this is what I do and it is because of this "mind your own business" attitude that I have never been kicked off my bike. The fact that I normally drive 20 km under the speed limit and am not normally on the roads at night might have a lot to do with it as well.

Thailand, for the most part, is a very safe place but the roads are definitely an exception. The roads in Thailand are a free-for-all and until the police actually do something to try to change this it always will be that way. While I have only been here a couple of years I quickly realized that the roads are basically the only dangerous place in all of this country.

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Yeah you might be tough, but can you take on 15 teenagers at once? Probably not.

Don't start fights with strangers is a good idea just in a general sense but when it comes to street punks or moto-gangs in Thailand, this is not the hill to die on. Are these kids assholes? Absolutely. But you are not going to change anything by getting involved.