In Praise of Thailand's Insane Motorcycle Taxis

In the ongoing tug-of-war between motorcycle safety and the wind in your hair, Michigan repealed its helmet law in April. I'm not taking sides there, but this kind of battle has always led me to wonder how people would ride if there were no rules. As it turns out, the answer can be found on the streets of Bangkok.

In the Thai capital, as little as 10 baht ($0.32) will allow you to experience one of the great sensations in motorcycling: being whisked through car gridlock by a rule-flouting madman astride a 125, in the middle of a sea of other madmen taking slightly different routes through the sea of cars. I visited Thailand recently, and my best experience on a motorcycle taxi was a ride from downtown Bangkok to the station to catch a train to the airport. It feels for all the world like an underground urban hare scramble, though it happens 24 hours a day and has been going on for decades, since people needed a cheap way to get from their houses to the main street.

My hosts gave instructions to the taxi rider. Stepping off the sidewalk and onto that taxi was a seismic shift in reality. Helmetless (riders are supposed to be offered a helmet, but I wasn't), you feel the hot, humid air in your eyes as you take in the sights and smells of Bangkok, perhaps sipping a lemonade as you look over your shoulder to see a movie-quality angle of a Thai woman sitting sidesaddle, blazing the wrong way down a one-way street behind another mental taxi driver. Forget superbike school or enduro racing?this might be the best sensation to be had on a motorcycle.

It got hectic at the very first intersection. Rather than follow signs to get to the other side of the divided, six-lane artery, my driver went against traffic while five or six other motorcycle taxis followed suit. We hugged the curb, whizzed past a dozen carts selling curry, and cut in front of a colossal truck. Then we hopped up on the sidewalk and headed across a crosswalk at a red light.

Thick traffic clogged our side of the road, so we crossed the painted centerline and headed against the oncoming traffic, where cars dutifully made way for us and about a dozen other motorcycles. It should have felt like a police chase, except everyone was so calm. Other passengers were texting on their phones or were sitting three-high on the back of the Yamahas.

It was a heroic effort to get me to the train station. After all, time was of the essence?my Thai hosts had told him I was taking the express train. The ride took a quarter of an hour and was more thrilling than any street ride I'd ever been on. I gave the taxi rider 100 baht and strolled into the air-conditioned calm of the station.

In the U.S., the thought, effort, and planning it takes to organize a proper motorcycle adventure can sap some of the joy out of riding. Grinding your way out of New York to find some truly great roads has a tendency to diminish that freedom-of-the-road feeling, while loading up dirt bikes in a van to drive someplace to go riding can make you feel almost uncomfortably bike crazy. Every bike fanatic needs a little Bangkok-style insanity in their lives once in a while.

A Thai motorcycle taxi ride is export-strength lunacy packaged into cheap, time-saving chunks that any visitor would be crazy not to try. Each ride is a shot of adrenaline during an otherwise pedestrian day. Some normal cops?very rarely?set up checkpoints to check for registration documents. But traffic cops don't really exist.

It's thrilling, and a jaunt on the back of a motorcycle taxi is much easier than scheduling time with friends for a weekend ride. Just make sure to grab coconut water before you go so you can cool your nerves while drinking in the cityscape from the best seat in the house.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/motorcycles/news/in-praise-of-thailands-insane-motorcycle-taxis-14784902?src=rss

veterans day 49ers anne hathaway mike brown earthquake bcs rankings world war z