Taxi driver assaulted by tourists: And the story that the news is not going to tell you

Another sort of "Bad tourists!" story has emerged out of Pattaya and while I always think that fighting is stupid, I also can read between the lines of articles that are written in Thailand because the media here is not truly free. If they write anything that suggests something that the government doesn't like, their offices will be raided and they will be shut down. I'm not making this up, it happens and likely continues to.

However, in this situation it seems as though there is still a trend to present foreigners in negative light whenever possible. I think that most of the time the negativity is deserved but I also believe that there is a lot more to this story that the news is going to give us.

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The way that the story is presented in this article goes is that a Thai taxi motorbike driver saw a couple of foreigners park their bike somewhere in Pattaya and then "politely asked them to move out of the no parking area."

These are the words as translated by authorities from the driver. He was just being polite and asking people to obey the rules and was ruthlessly attacked. Then after getting attacked the two men walked on and he pursued them to kindly ask what their problem was and they attacked him again.

Now that it not exactly what the article says but it is something along those lines.

Let me tell you a little something about Thai motorbike taxi drivers ok. In busy areas, groups of these lads simply take over public parking areas and will not allow anyone else to park there. They have no legal claim to this area, it is just the part that they want for themselves. This is not an official taxi rank, it is not marked as being for taxis. It is public parking and everyone by law is allowed to park there. These taxi drivers will harass anyone that tries to park there and will become very aggressive if you try to reason with them and park anyway.

I have been in this situation many times in popular areas but I didn't fight, I just left with a bad taste in my mouth about taxi drivers and found another place to park. Other people are not as calm as I am though.

While I do not know taxi driver "Sumate" who is the apparent victim in this, but I have seen what taxi drivers are like in tourist areas and I seriously doubt that he was ever polite and when he was pursuing them he wasn't kindly trying to find out "what their problem was."

He alleged that he followed them to demand responsibility for his injuries, leading to another confrontation.

I don't believe this for a second

Keep in mind I was not there, I have seen no video, and if I am wrong about this I will eat my words. What I do know is that the taxi drivers are kind of awful in tourist areas and they work as teams to make up their own rules and will bully anyone who doesn't listen to their made up rules, then if you don't comply they will vandalize, relocate, or destroy your bike, and if they feel as though they can overpower you, they will do exactly that. Then, when they don't win, they will cry foul to the papers and the police.

This is what I believe has happened here. I believe that Sumate was really rude, tried to play mafioso, and it backfired on him. I don't know what will happen to the two foreigners, but if the real pieces of the puzzle are put together by the authorities they will likely end up seeing what I think most people already suspect: Sumate was the aggressor here, things just didn't work out the way he had hoped.