Thailand: Drunk driver kills French tourist in Phuket

"Charged with driving under the influence of alcohol resulting in death, property damage, and hit-and-run."

Hopefully, following these charges, this Thai man will never again have the opportunity to get behind the wheel.

I question this individual's solvency in light of the multiple compensation payments he will have to make to compensate the victims' beneficiaries and for material damages…

A Volvo, seemingly recent, is not what one would call a cheap car in Thailand…

These are exported cars, on which significant taxes are applied, just like Mercedes, BMWs, etc.

What more can be added to the issue of drunk driving in Thailand that hasn't already been extensively covered in the media?

How many more accidents, serious injuries, and deaths will it take before the legislature completely overhauls the entire issue of driving in Thailand?

Despairing laxity and incompetence, and no hope on the horizon that this will change in 2026, because there is no one to shake things up and make a difference!

Two weights, two silences.

There are facts that disturb.

And there are silences that disturb even more.

Recently in Thailand, a Thai driver, apparently drunk, driving a luxury car, hit and destroyed several vehicles before killing a French pedestrian who was walking quietly on the sidewalk.

Nine cars destroyed. One dead. A clear, net, documented drama.

And yet: almost total silence in the traditional Thai press.

The information circulates elsewhere, on social networks, on a few independent sites, by word of mouth, but not where it should be treated with rigor, follow-up and responsibility.

This silence is not an isolated case. It fits into a well-known pattern.

When a foreigner, Swiss, French or other Westerner commits a fault in Thailand, the affair immediately becomes a media soap opera:

Repeated articles, public indignation, confessions, excuses, prison, staged repentance. The story lasts for weeks, sometimes months.

But when the perpetrator is Thai, especially if he is rich, well-connected or from a protected background, the mechanics change radically:

– few articles
– no follow-up
– no clear condemnation
– and, very often, a case that dissolves over time, until it disappears.

This is not an accusation against a people.

It's a criticism of a system.

A system where justice and information sometimes seem to stop at the boundaries of social status.

A system where some lives are visibly more newsworthy than others.

A system where responsibility is not always proportional to the severity of the acts.

What shocks, at bottom, is not just the injustice.

It's the moral asymmetry:

The fact that the fault is amplified or hushed up according to the identity of the one who commits it.

As long as these mechanisms remain taboo, as long as the traditional media choose silence over transparency, trust cannot fully exist, neither for foreigners living here nor for the Thais themselves who also suffer from these injustices.

Naming these realities is not an attack on Thailand.

It is, on the contrary, refusing to normalize them.