# In Thai law the bus driver was guilty

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-thai-drunk-cyclist-bus-guilty
- Themes: culture, responsibility, Thailand, law
- Life situations: cross-cultural shock, blaming after accidents

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

Outside the Thai monastery a drunk villager on a bicycle, no lights, wrong side of the road, is killed by a bus that had lights and was sober. The bus driver flees — under Thai law the bigger vehicle bears more responsibility to protect the smaller; he would have gone to jail. Western individual-fault thinking finds that unfair; Thai communal duty finds it obvious.

## The story, as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

there was this one villager was driving home from another Village after the party drunk on a bicycle on the wrong side of the road with no lights on it was totally drunk driving on the the highway wrong side of the road no lights on and he got creamed by a bus killed the bus had his lights on the bus you know was on the correct side of the road the bus driver didn't have any uh alcohol or drugs in him but the bus driver had to run away and flee cuz in Ty Law the bus driver would be guilty because in now when I heard that that's unfair there's a guy the bicycle is fault he's on the wrong side of the road he was drunk no lights on how can you blame the bus driver just explain to me that that's the Western way of looking at it always looking at the individual's responsibility but in tie law they were saying no the bus driver the bigger vehicle has a responsibility to look after the smaller vehicles they have more onus on them to be on the lookout and so in tyw if that buzz driver had been caught he had to run away and escaped till the heat went down he would have been put in jail for that

## Teaching point

Culture writes different stories of who is to blame — silence helps you see both.

## Reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

A drunk cyclist with no lights rode on the wrong side and was killed by a bus. Under Thai law, the bigger vehicle had more responsibility to look out for the smaller one, so the driver fled. Ajahn Brahm doesn't judge it. Different cultures see blame differently. Let that challenge your own assumptions.

## Source

- [The Wisdom Borne of Silence | Ajahn Brahm | 1 Jan 2016](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTiC0iDg-wk) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 55:35 to 57:13: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTiC0iDg-wk&t=3335s