Driving and scooters in Thailand

The licence question, which is really the insurance question

Thailand recognises the International Driving Permit issued under the 1949 Geneva Convention, and has recognised the 1968 Vienna Convention version since 2020. Your national licence on its own does not authorise you to drive or ride here.

The part that catches people is the category. If your home licence covers cars only, the permit issued from it covers cars only, and it does not authorise a scooter no matter how small the engine. You need a motorcycle entitlement at home and the matching category on the permit. In Britain that means an A, A1 or A2 on your licence, not the provisional motorcycle entitlement most car licences carry.

Rental shops in Phuket, Koh Samui, Koh Lanta and Pai will hand over a scooter without asking for any of this. Police at checkpoints in Patong and around the Chiang Mai moat do ask, and the on-the-spot fine is a few hundred to a thousand baht. That is the small consequence.

The large one is your insurance. Travel policies almost universally exclude motorcycle claims where the rider was not correctly licensed, and many exclude them where no helmet was worn. A hospital bill in Thailand after a scooter accident is not small, and medical repatriation is not small at all. Read the motorcycle clause of your policy before you rent, not after.

What the road statistics say

The WHO's fifth Global Status Report on Road Safety put Thailand's road traffic death rate at 25.4 per 100,000 people, ninth highest of 175 member states. Other rankings order it differently, but none of them puts Thailand anywhere near the bottom of the table, and motorcycles account for the majority of the deaths.

What that means for a visitor is not "do not ride". It is that the margin for error here is much smaller than it is at home: the traffic is denser, the road surface is worse in the wet, and the assumption that other drivers will do the predictable thing does not hold.

If you rent anyway

• Wear the helmet. It is the law for rider and passenger, and it is the difference between the two most likely outcomes.
• Photograph the bike before you leave. Every panel, from every angle, with the shop in shot. Damage disputes on return are a routine scam and photographs end them.
• Do not leave your passport as the deposit. Offer a cash deposit or a photocopy. A passport held against a damage claim is leverage you cannot argue with.
• Check the brakes and the tyres yourself. Rental scooters on the islands are worked hard and serviced lightly.
• Not in flip-flops, and not after a drink. Both are ordinary on the islands and both are how the ordinary accidents happen.

Renting a car instead

Straightforward, and considerably safer. The international rental firms operate at every major airport, the roads between towns are good, and the same IDP requirement applies with category B. Bangkok is the exception: the traffic is genuinely difficult and the BTS and MRT beat a car at almost any hour of the day.