This unfortunate event underlines just how dangerous it is to be an online delivery worker in Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia at a similar level of development. It is not just dangerous for the employees themselves but for everyone they share the road with. It doesn’t always end in a road rage fracas like the one on Sukhumvit Road, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t high time the authorities did something about it and forced companies like Foodpanda and its competitors to pay the true costs (economists call them ‘externalities’) of the problems they cause on Asian roads. For Foodpanda at least, the problem becomes irrelevant on May 23 in Thailand, when the company itself ceases operations there. Spoils of the online delivery wars Foodpanda quit the Thai market after years of cumulative losses. For those that remain, there are the spoils of war ― the booty from Foodpanda’s demise ― to divvy up and enjoy. When retailers are competing in a particular category and one of them falls over, its market share ― or at least a material portion of its market share ― will be donated to the survivors. And so it goes in Thailand with Foodpanda’s exit, one of the three big players in the Thai market. While the familiar pink-uniformed drivers atop their motorbikes will no longer be terrorizing other road users with their daredevil approach to riding, their major competitors, Singapore-based Grab and home-grown Lineman Wongnai, both all decked out in their familiar Sherwood Forest green will be out there using the roads as their personal speedway as usual, and they will have a very decent amount of new business ― Foodpanda’s business ― to take on board. If unofficial estimates are correct, it could be worth US$70 million of revenues. Both companies will be licking their chops. Grab’s got momentum Singapore-based superapp Grab, which operates online delivery, ride-hailing and financial services businesses throughout Southeast Asia, with the first of them contributing just more than 50 per cent of total revenues in the company’s first quarter. In the online delivery business, year-on-year revenues increased 18 per cent to US$415 million. Gross merchandise value (GMV) grew by 16 per cent to US$3.1 billion. The ‘take rate’, the percentage of transaction value siphoned off by the platform, thus increased slightly from 13 per cent to 13.3 per cent. The number of users (monthly transaction users, or MTUs) grew strongly, by 17 per cent to a new company high. Advertising revenue is also growing and making a heftier contribution to both revenues and the bottom line. CEO Anthony Tan is confident about the future.  “Looking ahead to the rest of 2025, we are confident in our ability to navigate the growing macroeconomic uncertainties across Southeast Asia,” Tan said.   The company is focused heavily on technological improvements to drive efficiency and boost consumer demand. Technology is used, among other things, to batch orders for drivers and reduce wait times. The increase in driver productivity correspondingly increases their earning capacity, but of course it also results in greater pressure to take more risks on the road than Evel Knievel. While companies like Grab put out massive ESG/DEI reports replete with glowing self-congratulation about how much they are lifting the incomes of their ‘driver partners’, others are taking a closer look at the costs in terms of road risk. Grab paints the issue only in terms of accidents involving its drivers, yet it isn’t possible to get statistics in less developed markets outside Singapore where driving conditions are far worse, enforcement almost non-existent, accidents not reported, and statistics not collected by the police or governments. The company statistics also conflict with independent surveys of the drivers themselves and don’t include traffic violations ― speeding, running red lights, lane-weaving, illegal passing and turning, driving on sidewalks, driving on the wrong side of the road, driving while using a phone, you name it ― that strongly indicate are epidemic. How do delivery platforms like Grab justify glossing over these problems? A survey of more than 1000 delivery drivers in mid-2022 by the Institute of Policy Studies at the National University of Singapore found that over a third of respondents had been involved in an accident on the job. And that’s in Singapore, not Thailand or one of the other lesser developed markets in which these superapps operate.  A new study by medical researchers at Chiang Mai University focuses on the injuries and accidents experienced by motorcycle delivery drivers during covid and the connection between these and what the study authors refer to as “risky riding behaviours”. It found that the incidence of traffic accidents among the 709 riders in the survey was a staggering 19 per cent during a six-month period. Of these accidents, 14 per cent involved major injuries and another 5 per cent resulted in minor injuries. Another interesting metric: 84 per cent of the riders admitted to engaging in at least one risky riding behaviour and 6 per cent engaged in more than 10 such behaviours. How do these kinds of surveys of actual riders square with the claims of Grab and other online delivery companies that they are safe? They simply don’t. The drivers are responding to the incentives laid down by their employers and it is worth noting that in China the government began switching its policy from penalising the delivery drivers to penalising the delivery platforms for traffic infringements. A similar switch might well be in order in places like Thailand. Meanwhile, Grab, Lineman and the lesser competitors in the market will take every little advantage that comes their way in a cut-throat market.