It seems that the Thai government is seeking the aid of Japan to make roads around the kingdom safer.
Thailand’s Ministry of Transport has gone to Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT) for advice on reducing the number of accidents on Thai roads over this year’s festive period.
Thailand’s Transport Minister, Arkhom Termpittayapaisith met with representatives from MLIT to talk about various safety measures under a memorandum of understanding regarding road safety.
Roads across the kingdom are expected to be especially busy over the holiday season and as a result officials will be implementing additional safety measures including erecting additional speed limit signs, painting parts of roads red to remind drivers to reduce their speed.
Thoughts........ it wasn't our fault when statistics don't improve.
Maybe they could sell us some more revolutionary new light bulbs to make crossing the road safer, Oh, wait a minute, didn't somebody just pay 3.2M and they didn't work?
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The Japanese are well-disciplined, courteous people with a high degree of sensitivity to other peoples comfort.
The Thai people have NONE of these qualities and never will have them
a story from China. A city in Guandong had horrible un-disciplined traffic and the mayor had been harassing the police to do something about it with no results. He went to a meeting in HK on some other matter. When he returned he called in all the police and said. Good news. You have tried your best but can not enforce the laws--so I am going to arrange a group of HK police to come here and teach you how to do it. Within days the traffic was orderly and disciplined--the police were out on the streets working like animals to make the changes. Moral--the most effective way to effect change in Asia is to threaten people with loss of face.
Have you ever seen police out and about in vehicles, looking for enforcing the traffic laws? Can't have any enforcement if nobody to enforce anything. Get them patrol cars of motorcycles and make them be out an about enforcing the traffic laws. Gosh could even cost less than a new submarine.
I've said it before to many folk that out there is a large percentage of Thais that will not (& have never) obeyed the law..From an early age Thai males do what they want, when they want & even before leaving school the youths are undisciplined & unruly.
So then when this state of mind is allowed to be in control of a motor vehicle the results are to be seen by all.. lack of respect, no intention of abiding by any road laws ..be it red lights, speed limits, road markings..(no need to go on).
If the police here are ever going to enforce the traffic laws they need to be damn tough..and merciless too!
Less of the 500b fines & community service for death by drunk driving etc (1 year after the incident)...crush the vehicle (put video footage on the news) & name & shame the driver as he starts his mandatory prison sentence..Yes, BIG loss of face, & a mounting debt with the finance company for the crushed pick-up..Just my opinion..Rant over folks
I have heard that British ships of war back in the days of sailing ships painted the decks red to hide the blood. . . .perhaps a similar line of thinking went into painting the road red as a warning?
But face it, no amount of paint, rumble strips, signs, bells or whistles will help in the slightest here. Every time I come up to the railway crossing nearby (which has flashing lights, safety barriers, at least a dozen warning signs in various shapes and colours as well as a major rumble strip preceding it) I am reminded of an truck vs.train accident at a RR crossing that I read about a while ago. The driver barely survived a horrific crash ( others killed if I remember correctly) and commented, "I thought I could make it around the safety barriers before the train arrived!"