A man waits for a bus. Seeing a motorcycle trespass on the sidewalk, he warns the rider. Moments later, the bike returns and plows into his body, knocking him to the ground before speeding off.
That was the incident described online by someone whose security footage of the assault baffled netizens and quickly spread through the Thai net on Thursday. It was revealed later that it happened Feb. 1 in the old royal quarter on Lan Luang Road.
“They just turned around to hit him. It’s my friend’s brother. I don’t have more details,” user Prasert Sae-ung wrote in the video’s caption.
The man who was hit said today that he had warned the rider not to ride on the sidewalk before he was hit, which injured his hip. He added that police contacted him yesterday to say his attacker offered 5,000 baht to withdraw the charges, which he refused.
The video had been shared more than 16,000 times and watched over 1.2 million times as of Thursday afternoon. Most comments condemned the rider.
City Hall in October announced it was doubling fines for sidewalk riders as hundreds of checkpoints set up across Bangkok haven’t discouraged them.
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