Two Bangkok traffic cops dead in one week from hit and runs

Front page news in all of the Thai media last week was the story of the driver of a Ferrari who hit and killed a traffic cop on his motorcycle and then fled the scene. He was later caught despite a senior policeman trying to pin the blame on the driver’s personnel assistant. It turns out that the driver was an heir to the Red Bull fortune. The backlash on social media was almost immediate with everyone coming down hard on the young driver. Not necessarily because of what he had done, but because they immediately thought that being rich he might get away with it (see an excellent opinion column in the Bangkok Post about this).

 Now comes the news of a second traffic cop in Bangkok being killed by a hit and run driver. But, where is the outrage on social media? Why didn’t it get front page news? I almost missed the story yesterday when flipping through my copy of the Bangkok Post. It was hidden on page 4 in the “News Bites” section. The lack of interest by the media could partially be explained because as it happened at 1:30 a.m. there were no pictures for them to run. Certainly no pictures of an expensive car like a Ferrari as the vehicle in this case is suspected to be a pick-up truck. If they do catch this culprit, it will be interesting to compare sentences given to each of them.