General Mackevili wrote:

StroppyChops wrote:I'm keen to hear what you grumble-grumbles make of my one big accident even though it's old news - I was turning left at a major intersection, on my XR650, dickhead in an unplated and overtinted Lexus came screaming up the wrong side of the road to avoid peak-hour traffic, against the lights, and would have crushed me in the intersection if I hadn't taken a dive and put the bike into the road, hard. No way to see him driving against traffic with the usual wrong-lane congestion waiting for the light to change. My fault for being in Cambodia while white?

If you would have let him hit you, yes, it would have been his fault.

General Mackevili wrote:

Mr Curious wrote:

General Mackevili wrote:

Jacket wrote: So, in the lane with the oncoming traffic there was a silver SUV, it was approaching me, but it was far enough away and moving slow enough for me to take a left turn...
...or that's what I thought. All of a sudden some wanker on a black & grey Honda Wave shot out from behind the SUV in an attempt to overtake it. I just saw him coming my way and braced for the impact. The next thing I know I was picking myself up from the ground. The guy already was in the middle of picking up his scooter when I stopped him. I took his key out of the ignition and told him to stop until the police comes. He wasn't too happy about this and started to explain to me (in pretty good English) that I was wrong because I wasn't wearing a helmet of the time of the accident.

Call me crazy (or worse), but this sounds like your fault from beginning to end.

You cut across traffic, had no helmet, probably no licence and failed to see a vehicle in the lane that you cut over across while making a left hand turn when they were going STRAIGHT?

You are lucky you got outta there without paying.

I always have a hard time blaming this scenario on the guy going straight and not the guy making a left hand turn across traffic.

I don't care if he was going 100 miles per hour, YOU cut across HIS traffic. It is up to you to YIELD and make damn sure everything is clear before cutting across traffic to make a left turn.

The lesson you should learn here is YOU need to be more careful when cutting across traffic like you did. There will almost ALWAYS be some twit driving too fast. You should expect them.

Bottom line: I believe it's always up to the person cutting across traffic like you did to make a left hand turn who needs to make absolutely sure it's done safely.

Glad you're both OK!

did you not see "So, in the lane with the oncoming traffic there was a silver SUV, it was approaching me, but it was far enough away and moving slow enough for me to take a left turn...
?????
are you daft enough to suggest he wait until the entire lane is clear for as far as one can see?

I can't even begin to believe some of the reasoning you use. Because he's TURNING it's his fault? Some guy on a moto zooms up behing the slow SUV this guy SAW and overtook and ran INTO this guy and you see it as him running into zoom boy? fuck'n amazing. In fact it was passing on the right boy's fault as he was hidden behind the SUV which Jacket had properly sussed was traveling slow enough to make his turn, having almost done the turn when wacked in the last bit by asshole speeding by SUV on it's right. But yeah, LTO might be right, if Jacket don't start using the "we are always wrong" thinking, he may not make it there long. Thread it chock fulla some kind of weird, expat against expat logic. This from guys most often pointing out how bad the locals drive.

Common sense should always tell you that there's a possibility that a faster moving vehicle might be behind a slower moving vehicle that you see coming towards you.

And I'm not excusing the speedster, but you have no business driving anywhere in Cambodia if you don't ALWAYS anticipate speeding vehicles, drivers on the wrong side of the road, etc.

Jacket wrote:It's ridiculous how people here are just so accepting of this fucked up status quo. "This is Cambodia" doesn't cut it for me anymore! I don't accept the shit that's happening here on the basis of "this is Cambodia". If you want to be a bunch of little bitches and nod your head in the face of injustice then be my guest, but don't expect everyone to do the same. I'm not trying to make this personal, but the reluctancy of some to speak out against things that are going wrong in this country is really getting on my nerves!

Let's play devil's advocate and assume for a second that I was 100% wrong and that knobhead was 100% right. If I had to pay a fine in this case it wouldn't matter one bit whether I was in the wrong or not. I'm the barang,so I have to face the consequences. Is that really how it's supposed to be? Are you guys fine with that? I'm not and that's for damn sure!

Cam Nivag wrote:I'm late to this thread, but when I read the OP, my first response was "it sounds like his fault for turning left into oncoming traffic."