Driving in Thailand

[PeteC]

We've done this one a few times but maybe time for an update. I chuckled at Poosmate's post in the cinema thread about driving 15km. I think if we weren't here we wouldn't even think about such a short distance. Simply put, driving here is not enjoyable at all and is more of a chore than the pleasurable pastime we remember from elsewhere.

I did a Bangkok trip last week and both ways I arrived at destination tired and worn out, and it has nothing to do with age. Here, all of your senses and driving skills have to work overtime trying to anticipate every possible absurd thing that possibly could happen. The motorway and elevated Bangkok-Chonburi highway is not bad, but even on those without fail you'll come cross drivers in the right or middle lanes doing 60kph and if there is a stream of fast traffic in the other lanes, you'll need to slow and sometime even brake before your chance to pull out and go around him.

On that elevated highway the speed signs were flashing 80kph maximum speed as they always do. However, there was an electronic digital sign spanning the overhead across the lanes at one point that in Thai said "....don't go faster then 90kph in order to save fuel..." WTF The 80kph max signs are just to allow the MIB to stop anyone at will and have a reason.

In Bangkok we sat several times for 2 or 3 cycles without the light turning green as it was being controlled by an MIB in an air conditioned booth who thought it was better to let the main artery flow longer. He did this at the bottom of an off ramp from the expressway which resulted in traffic on the expressway backing up about 3km from the exit ramp. Untrained, unsupervised and simply stupid procedures. Read about traffic management anywhere else and you'll find timed short cycles of red/green in all directions keeps traffic flowing properly most of the time. I wish they would at least try this in Bangkok and we may be amazed at the good results.

Enough from me. Let's hear experiences from some others. Pete

[Big Boy]

Read about traffic management anywhere else and you'll find timed short cycles of red/green in all directions keeps traffic flowing properly most of the time. I wish they would at least try this in Bangkok and we may be amazed at the good results.

In the UK they are experimenting with turning traffic signals off. They reckon it will help the traffic flow better. Do you think the same experiment in Thailand might help?

[PeteC]

I forgot to mention. If buying a used car or pick up here, try to find one owned by a farang. You can believe the low mileage on the odometer and guaranteed the maintenance has been better.

I can't count how many times I've been told that Thais save for a long time to be able to buy a vehicle, afterwards they have little money after buying fuel regularly so maintenance tends to get delayed. I guess that's why last week I was behind a 1 year old Isuzu bellowing black smoke thick enough to coat the windshields behind him. Pete

[PeteC]

In the UK they are experimenting with turning traffic signals off. They reckon it will help the traffic flow better. Do you think the same experiment in Thailand might help?

IMO absolutely not, it would be chaos. There is no driver courtesy here and no forethought of action. People would simply zoom out of side streets without looking and those on the main thoroughfare would make a point not to let people out or across. Even if an intersection slowed, they would stop and block the cross street. Hell, they even stop on railroad crossings and wonder why the train doesn't stop! As their motto goes, "....what's easy for me....". Pete

[Big Boy]

Hmmmm ... thought that might be the answer

[MartinJ]

have to say i thought they did turn of the traffic light in Thailand already, may time i see them flashing on amber and the my friend at the time told me to drive on and not mind the lights as that are off at this time every day

we also had part time signals in the UK for a long time , cant say i think these are much good to help the flow or not as there are too many cars being driven by many younger drivers who like to take the chance,

I never sure about the light system in Thailand as sometimes you can turn left when the lights on red and some time you can not, or may be you can not and they just do.

There must be a book like the highway code in the UK, please tell me there is

[Norseman]

There must be a book like the highway code in the UK, please tell me there is

Sure is. Search for the Land Traffic Act, http://www.thailaws.com/

All you need to do is to copy the content, (5 million copies would do the trick), then hand over a copy to every Thai motorist you see, because 99% of the drivers have never heard of nor read the act.
Maybe it's secret?

[Nereus]

There must be a book like the highway code in the UK, please tell me there is

Sure is. Search for the Land Traffic Act, http://www.thailaws.com/

All you need to do is to copy the content, (5 million copies would do the trick), then hand over a copy to every Thai motorist you see, because 99% of the drivers have never heard of nor read the act.
Maybe it's secret?

It would make no difference if you were give every Thai driver a gold plated copy of the regulations, they would still ignore them and just go their own way. It is not driver education, or the lack of it, it is the Thai attitude of "me first". Just as they walk and stop in front of you on the street, so they drive in the same manner. Here is an example posted in "Postbag" in the Bangkok Post today, not of driving, but "attitude":

" I live in a rented house and my well has run dry so I applied for city water (the landlord gave permission but wouldn't pay for it). Now just about everyone in the mooban has it and I thought it would be a simple matter to connect. But no. One strategic house was the make-or-break on me getting a water supply. He decided that if I got it his water pressure would go down, even though he was assured by the water board that it wouldn't. He refused permission." (http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opin ... -the-point)

The same logic applies to driving:" I was here first, so I must be allowed to have right of way". Or, "I need to go to the 7-11, so it is my right to double park, regardless of who I might inconvenience".
When my ex-son-in-law was learning to drive with a Thai instructor, he was told: "do not look in the rear view mirror, the driver behind you has to keep away from you!"

For anybody that drives regularly in Thailand, you have to learn to read the way they are and adapt to it. This does not mean that you have to drive like the idiot that is tailgating you, but drive to suit the conditions, and be defensive, which means expecting the ridiculous to occur, as Pete has written.

Too much thinking about this subject will get your blood pressure up before you even get in your car!

[Takiap]

Well written Nereus. For years I used to get all worked up and pissed off with the way they drive here, but in the end I simply accepted the fact that nothing will ever change the way people drive in Thailand. Now I'm the exact opposite, in that I can usually even laugh at them, because if you think about it, their behavior on the roads is laughable, although also bloody dangerous.

As far as the water story mentioned above is concerned.......I don't think all Thai's are that selfish. When we were having our place built the tessabaan refused to accept the fact that there was indeed an access road in place, despite this being evident on the land office records. They then insisted that the part marked out as an access road needed to stretch further back than it did. This was a problem as the land at the end belongs to a Thai family who own the local shop. Basically we need her to give up a 4m strip of land from one side of her property to the next.......a total of about 100 square meters. Guess what....she agreed to do so and she never asked for anything in return, only that we pay for the land office fee which I think was about 2 or 3 thousand baht.

Maybe a rare occurrence, but in my mind, very kind of her.

Back to the driving.................I can never understand how anyone can fork out a huge amount of money for a fancy new car in Thailand and then be willing to take it on the roads when they've never even learned how to drive. Many of them buy a car and then simply start driving. It's a matter of learn as you go along.

Well, I'm just on my way out the door now so now doubt I'll see some more crazy antics within the next few minutes....

[tonymaroni]

Is there a Thai equivalent to a courtesy blinking of the lights that we use in the West? Acknowledging that cars ahead can merge or enter our path safely, or make a turn in front of us safely without having to worry we don't see them or might run into them.

Now I know in Thailand blinking your lights mean I am coming through.
Or to be more precise I think it means "I am coming through MF!!

I've heard or seen it written many times.
"Oh Thai people are so polite"
I think that must have been written by a non-driver.

Doc

[Khundon1975]

My FIL is one of the BIB and scared the life out of me on my first drive with him in a bloody great BMW.

Driving back from a Karaoke night (sad I know) during a torrential downpour, he increased speed to 120kph and put his hazard lights on.

Whether he thought that by turning them on, would stop the car aquaplaning or decrease stopping distances, I never found out. The wife said "don't ask".