A Lesson You Must Learn #expatlife

A Lesson You Need to Learn

If you want to be an Expat.

A friend who teaches at the university with me is in big trouble. About 1 year ago he had an accident. While making a left hand turn, a motorcycle tried to pass and they collided. The motorcycle driver, a young woman, was injured and spent about 2 months in the hospital treating her broken shin and ankle.

His insurance was paid up; he actually had a Thai driver's license. It clearly was not his fault. When the police got involved a lot of paperwork and conversation was passing back and forth between his wife and the officers and in the end the wife knowingly or unknowingly signed a confession for the husband which, apparently, is legal here. Crazy?

My friend assumed his insurance would handle things as it would back in the states. He never imagined his wife would sign a confession! And no one discussed it with him at all. He went on with his life. 1 year passed... He forgot all about it.

And now my friend is in court defending himself from the judge's threats of jail because he didn't visit the girl in the hospital, the insurance hadn't paid the claim and my friend had not paid any cash-based apologies all stemming from his apparent confession written in Thai and signed by his wife. It didn't help that he was not contrite and servile...

Surprise!

He ends up paying the court 300,000 baht for an appeal and is put on probation. You get a big red X on your immigration screen that is quite a shock.

He went to court 5 or 6 times over the course of a year and has been constantly paying out small fees to the lawyer, court costs, and to the complainant.

And living with the threat of jail is not easy.

Lesson learned? Do I need to write it out?