Phuket Death Crash: Aussies Flee Patong Hirer’s ClaimBy Chutima Sidasathian and Alan MorisonThursday, June 9, 2011PHUKET: One Australian tourist has been killed and another man badly injured in a Phuket motorcycle crash that has left a concrete truck driver charged with dangerous driving and a vendor wondering who will pay for his expensive wrecked vehicle. The Patong motorcycle hirer and a friend even went to the cremation of the Australian man at a Phuket temple to ask the family to pay 300,000 baht to replace the 600cc Honda big bike.

Mediation talks were set to take place at a Phuket police station today – but it appears the dead man’s family and his injured friend fled on a flight back to Australia last night, accompanying the ashes of the dead man. The Phuket police officer handling the case, Lieutenant Praman Rattaphan, said today that he was disappointed that the family did not turn up as scheduled this afternoon to discuss the matter.

”Clearly, they are victims in this case,” Lieutenant Praman said today. ”I don’t know why they flew home in such a hurry. Perhaps Thai friends made them worried.”

Counter-suits in several cases over the past 18 months have raised anxiety levels among expats embroiled in violent or tragic incidents on Phuket. Earlier this year, two men who were seriously knifed in a Patong gang’s attack caught a late-night flight back to Australia in the belief that the men who almost killed them were about to launch a counter-suit that could have kept the wounded Australians on Phuket to answer charges. Tourist Barry Saunders, 48, died in a Phuket hospital on May 27, just hours after he and his friend Peter hired the 600cc motorcycle in Patong for a day’s outing. Curling that afternoon down a scenic laneway lined with rubber plantations in the Bangjo district, not far from Phuket’s famous Heroine’s Monument, the pair crashed under an empty cement truck being driven by Amnard Laor, 34. The occupants of a saloon car that came upon the crash propped Mr Saunders against a nearby tree, while his friend Peter lay bleeding on the roadway.  The injured Australians were eventually conveyed by ambulance to Vachira Hospital in Phuket City, where Mr Saunders died.

The pair of friends had arrived in Bangkok on May 9, moving on to Phuket on May 17. They had been staying in an apartment in the Nanai district of Patong, on Phuket’s popular west coast, hiring the ”big bike” motorcycle on the morning of May 27 and crashing it that afternoon.

Lieutenant Praman said today that the driver of the concrete truck said the motorcycle had been going fast, but inspection of marks on the roadway at the scene led to police charging him with dangerous driving. Family members flew to Phuket and were approached at Mr Saunders’ cremation by the motorcycle’s owner, seeking 300,000 baht for his written-off motorcycle. It is believed the owner had third-party coverage but no insurance on the motorcycle. Phuketwan was unable to contact the hirer today.
Mr Saunders’ friend Peter required extensive treatment and paid all his medical bills before checking out of Phuket City’s Vachira Hospital this week and, it is believed, leaving the country with his friend’s ashes and family members last night.