TODAY'S MOVIE premiere on Phuket required a yellow admission ticket. Hundreds turned up at the private screening, a large crowd that would have been big enough to make this year's failed Phuket Film Festival a certain success.

''My theatre is full,'' joked Colonel Wanchai Eakporntip, superintendent of Phuket City police station, as the fourth-floor auditorium filled up. ''We have had good ticket sales.''

Today's matinee marked the first screening of a Phuket documentary, made by police and local media, specifically highlighting real-life cases where Phuket people have been killed or seriously injured through not wearing helmets while riding motorcycles.

About 400 people, pulled over since the crackdown on helmet-wearing began on July 1 in Phuket City, had to watch the 15-minute screening in one of two daily sessions before having their confiscated ID or riding licenses returned.

For some, it was a costly outing to the movies. Workers were going to lose a half-day or even a full day's pay. Schoolboys and girls faced the loss of studies and the shame of having breached the traffic safety code.

It's a measure of the new-found concern about road safety that the film was made specifically on Phuket, using Phuket examples, to reinforce the ''wear a helmet or else'' message, which is due to spread to Kathu and Patong after Phuket City.

''We will concentrate on Patong more carefully,'' said Vice Governor Treerayut Eamtakul at today's premiere, a little like a director being interviewed on the red carpet.

''There are tourists from all over the world who get on motorcycles but don't wear helmets, so the approach will have to be in several languages.''

No expats could be seen at today's Phuket City premiere. Thousands of free metal helmets have been issued in the lead-up to the campaign, with fines of up to 1000 baht for those people who travel on motorcycles without helmets.

''Five-hundred baht or even 1000 baht is a cheap price to pay to save your life,'' the vice governor said. ''Much better to spend the money on a good helmet, though.''

About 90 percent of motorcycle riders and passengers now wear helmets in the crackdown hours of 6am to 10pm in Phuket City. However, Phuketwan did a survey after 10pm on the weekend and it was plain that those proportions were reversed - only one in 10 riders wore helmets.

Until people wear helmets out of sense of personal safety rather than fear of a fine, the police will need to keep handing out tickets to their improvised cinema.

Phuketwan supports Mothers or Motorcycles (MoM), an action group that aims to encourage safer riding on motorcycles to reduce pain and suffering on Phuket