SAMUI, Thailand – Wet roads can turn a routine motorcycle ride into a serious accident in seconds, as Pattaya Mail online forum contributor Nicky Sabai discovered during a late-night ride on Koh Samui. Nicky said he and a friend were riding a rented motorcycle back from Chaweng to Lamai after rain had fallen, travelling over the mountain on a downhill section of road.
The rented bike had poor tyres, and Nicky said his friend, who was driving, had probably had a little too much to drink. Suddenly, the motorcycle lost traction and both riders found themselves sliding across the wet pavement. Remarkably, Nicky said his helmet never touched the ground and even his flip-flops stayed on his feet. However, he suffered a large cut to his knee. Fortunately, he was wearing a polyester golf shirt that took most of the road rash. Despite hitting the pavement, the shirt did not even tear.
The accident happened at around 3:30 a.m., when there was virtually no traffic on the road. The pair quickly moved themselves and the motorcycle out of the way. A Thai woman who stopped to help offered them tissues and water and asked whether they wanted to go to a local hospital. Nicky said their injuries were not serious enough to require hospital treatment, so they rode the motorcycle to a nearby 7-Eleven to buy bandages and rubbing alcohol. “It definitely wasn’t the best night of the vacation,” Nicky wrote, reflecting on the incident and the dangers of wet roads.
His knee eventually healed without lasting effects, although the injury looked and felt considerably worse at the time. His friend escaped with less serious injuries. There was also an unexpected survivor from the crash: Nicky’s shirt. He explained that it was actually a copy of an Adidas shirt he had bought from a street vendor in Pattaya. After about five washes, the black marks from the road had come out, and he still wears the shirt today. For Nicky, the incident was a reminder that wet roads, poor tyres, darkness, downhill sections and impaired driving can combine to create a dangerous situation very quickly.
