Effect of enforcing Thai motoring legislation

[joelle]

It has more to do with the deterrents/penalties and size of the fines than general law obeying.

and, may I add, proper enforcement of the law

[Big Boy]

Proper enforcement may help a little, but whilst the penalties remain too low, many will still take the chance.

[Dannie Boy]

Even in the UK where the penalty for say drink driving is a minimum 12 months driving ban, a hefty fine and then a significant increase in the cost of insurance premiums, you still get numpty’s who flout the law and drink and drive, but of course without these deterrents the numbers would be a lot higher!!

[Gregjam]

Unfortunately, while the UK drink driving laws are in general very good, certain well endowed celebrities who despite being bankrupt still manage to have holidays in Thailand, seem to be immune from drink driving regulations so there are some similarities with the stop, test, bribe and go procedures reported to exist here.

[sateeb]

A couple of weeks ago I downloaded Radarbot to my Android phone.
Last week I drove down to Phuket and every fixed speed and red light camera warnings I got were spot on.

[Dannie Boy]

They should ban such devices.

[HHTel]

Why? Even google maps warns you of speed limits among other things. Such warnings should improve safety unless you choose to ignore them.

[Dannie Boy]

Yes but many people use them to speed irresponsibly and just slow down for the cameras. General Speed limits as with Google Maps are one thing, warnings about speed cameras and traffic light cameras are something else!!

[Big Boy]

I've downloaded the app, and had a look at the cameras around Hua Hin. There is just one where I am usually marginally over the limit, but it's never zapped me yet - I will certainly be more careful going through there in future. Crazy thing is, Northbound it is set to 60, but Southbound it is set to 90.

The camera where I'm normally a little naughty, I am usually keeping up with the slower traffic. It must be a little gold mine.

[sateeb]

One of the things I noticed on the app was the speed displayed was generally 5kph slower than what my cars speedo was displaying. On the approach to any camera I trusted my speedo over the app.

[HHTel]

Actually on a flat straight road the GPS is more accurate. If moving up or down hill or round bends, GPS can be slightly off.
Speedometers are calibrated assuming the largest tyre and inflation so will always err on the positive. Caution so as not to be challenged on speeding violations.

Much inaccuracy can be attributed to the fact that wheel rotation rates are converted to speed. But tires can wear a significant fraction of an inch in diameter so the comuted speed which is related to the rate and circumference will be off an equal precentage of the diameter error vs diameter. And the tires are generally not round when then they have a little bit flat footprint as they usually do.

On the other hand, GPS relies on super accurate clock timing from the satellite and computes speed from distance moved in a time period. While GPS absolute accuracy can be only a few feet, the differential accuracy is very good. that is when it computeds having moved 2 feet, since the last reading, it is exceptionally accurate at that.

So in general the GPS speed displayed is based on differential movement in the GPS clock time, so it is a very accurate speed.

Trusting your speedometer reading will keep you out of trouble as they err toward a faster speed than actual.

Thought: When moving round a sharp bend, one side of the car is going faster than the other - so what is the speed?

[bigston]

well if you want to get to your destination quicker, if you are the driver, only go around right hand sided bends....
the passenger can catch up with you later.

[VincentD]

Radarbot is a crowd sourced gps application, I e. it depends on user generated inputs. The more users you have, the more up to date it gets. The fixed cameras are already a part of most gps apps anyway. So to use this you need to be connected to the internet if you want the up to date info.
Not something I would put much faith in, and they do try to make you buy an 'upgraded' version.
I use a radar detector, and have always had one in my car since 1992. The latest iterations have gps capability and a built in database of speed cameras. Has saved me the hassle of getting stuck in a queue at a road stop.
Just because I have one does not mean I intend to drive at warp speed, but more to avoid unnecessary delays to a journey. Many of us do go over the speed limit, but there is a safe way to do so, and an unsafe way to do the same.
My two baht worth..

[HHTel]

well if you want to get to your destination quicker, if you are the driver, only go around right hand sided bends....
the passenger can catch up with you later.

Good answer.

[VincentD]

Car speedos are typically set to read about 5 kmh higher than the actually speed when using the wheel and tyre sizes as specified in the owners manual. You'll find this across all brand of vehicles.