Published on January 19, 2005

The recent subway accident, which led to more than a hundred injuries, four of them critical, has been attributed to human error and carelessness.

Transport Minister Suriya Jungrungreangkit was quick to state that, “If the officials had followed the manual, there wouldn’t have been such an incident.”

However, that “if” is indeed a very big “if” considering that Thai attitudes are so accepting of risks and their consequences, if not outright fatalistic.

When terrible accidents occur, whether naturally or as a result of human actions, Thais tend to seek comfort in the fatalistic Buddhist belief in karma. Some Catholic Thais, meanwhile, feel tempted to explain these occurrences away as the wrath of God, as a priest at Saint Louis Church on Sathon Road did after the tsunami disaster, rather than wondering if a warning could indeed have been issued beforehand, or why one wasn’t.

Karma and God aside, Thais are generally fond of gambling: they are natural risk-takers. This, coupled with the carefree mai pen rai attitude, is a cocktail for disaster, especially in an atmosphere of government negligence and corruption. Compensations for accidental death due to negligence, however, are very low, as relatives of workers of the Kader Toy Factory discovered a decade ago.

With the tsunami and now the subway accident dominating headlines the media have spent a lot of time covering compensation and insurance, as if everything will be just fine as long as someone gets compensated. But those who die are unable to collect.

The past three weeks saw the Kingdom coming to terms with not just the tsunami, but also the threat of earthquake tremors in Bangkok and that from buildings with illegal structural additions, estimated to number in the tens of thousands in the capital alone. Last week, Bangkok Governor Apirak Kosayodhin himself admitted that as many as 80 per cent of the large billboards dotting Bangkok are not safe.

Regulations and inspections aside, adherence to general safety standards requires a culture that appreciates safety. Thai society is like a man walking with his shoelaces untied. He’s bound to trip sooner or later – and not just once. And no state-of-the-art technology will help him as long as people don’t care to take proper precautions.

A general education that is geared towards creating a culture of safety and precautions is urgently needed and must be taught from the elementary, if not the pre-elementary, level. A safety-promotion commission is perhaps also needed. Its task would be to look into various risk areas, activities and attitudes. It would also act in a pro-active fashion and try to learn from countries with high safety standards like Japan and Germany.

Consider some of the views expressed on the well-known late-night television programme “Thueng Look Thueng Khon” on Monday night just hours after the subway accident happened. The attitudes were indicative of the fatalism of Thai culture.

Many viewers expressed sympathetic messages, like the following: “Nobody wanted [the subway accident] to occur.”

Yes, that’s true, but such remarks don’t help with anything, especially with future prevention.

Another added: “Please don’t add insult to injury.”

This is interesting – a case of amnesty before an admission of wrongdoing on the part of the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand, which oversees the subway’s operations.

“Don’t blame anyone. It was a mere accident,” read another message.

One message gave us a classic example of fatalism: “Nothing is as certain as uncertainty.”

Yes, very Buddhist. So are we to do nothing about preventing accidents?

Another very forgiving message read: “Nobody wanted it to occur. We love Thailand.”

This is a case of a classic truism mingled with nationalism, neither of which do anyone any good or mean anything at all.

A Japanese friend of this writer opined that if this had happened in Japan, those involved in the careless act of releasing a brake on an empty train, which slipped away and collided with another one containing 700 passengers, would definitely go to jail. And those highest up, with the responsibility of overseeing the management, would resign.

Well, this is Thailand and not Japan, so the management continues to smile.

Viewers of that television programme went to some length to accept the accident as inevitable, with one writing: “What will happen will happen. Please don’t blame anyone.”

Another said: “I’m lucky that I wasn’t on that train.”

Few, very few indeed, sent messages raising the need to find the culprit or insisting that passing of buck would be unacceptable.

If they had, that could have been the beginning of Thai society learning how to keep its shoelaces properly tied before even thinking of walking again.

Pravit Rojanaphruk

The Nation

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