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Truth is Stranger than Fiction: When LHD and RHD worlds collide…literally! [+video]

Image from Bangkok Coconuts
Image from Bangkok Coconuts

So there’s an old joke that goes: “A car was driving down the wrong side of a highway once, and a trucker sees this from the opposite side. He gets on his CB radio and announces frantically “Breaker, breaker, be aware there’s a lunatic driving down the I-95 on the wrong side!!” At this point the said car driver hears this on his own CB radio, gets on the horn and replies “What do you mean one motorist? There’s hundreds of them going the wrong way!!” Funny it may be, but not when it happens FOR REAL!

That’s exactly what happened recently when an American tourist in Pattaya, Thailand, drove on the wrong side of the road. Perhaps being used to left-hand drive in her country, the driver, identified only as “Samantha”, apparently fled the scene of her first accident with a motorcycle, and in an obvious state of panic, caused a further 12! Thai Police were forced to eventually shoot out her tyres to finally bring her to a stop.

Image from Bangkok Coconuts
Image from Bangkok Coconuts. Note that red registration tags in Thailand mean that car, or what’s left of it, was brand new!

Like a scene out of GrandTurismo or Fast & Furious, the carnage that ensued after the first crash was nothing short of Hollywood fodder. In retrospect, she should be thankful the cops showed up, because enraged fellow motorists looked ready to take matters into their own hands. Apparently she was taken to a police station, issued a ‘heavy fine’ and has agreed to pay for the damage caused.

Here’s a video caught on a traffic-cam, which shows only part of the mayhem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es_nSXLg7wY
Images and information from Bangkok Coconuts (http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2015/04/07/american-girl-wrecks-13-vehicles-pattaya-video)