bigdod

A very good post and only positive comments/replies - impressive stuff

Personally speaking, I've never been much of a one for politics - here, or back home, and I think it would be fair to say that I am politically uneducated. However, I've been trying to follow this situation on here and - correct me if I'm wrong - from what I read, basically there's no one party any better than the other. They're all just self serving megalomaniacs? Is there an actual workable solution for Thailand? I mean, are there ANY politicians here who are actually worth voting for?

Individually, almost certainly. But once they form a "gang" and achieve power, the lowest common denominator is the force.

Hmmm yep, thats pretty much the way I see it too. There's not a lot of hope for them then, is there..?

Personally speaking, I've never been much of a one for politics - here, or back home, and I think it would be fair to say that I am politically uneducated. However, I've been trying to follow this situation on here and - correct me if I'm wrong - from what I read, basically there's no one party any better than the other. They're all just self serving megalomaniacs? Is there an actual workable solution for Thailand? I mean, are there ANY politicians here who are actually worth voting for?

Never happen

Observation

Signal

Manouevre

I would bet they didn't do the observation, didn't signal, did the dodgy manouevre suddenly crossing 3 lanes of traffic, then did the observation way too late as already three-quarters of the way through the manouevre, switched on indicator seven-eighths of the way into the manouevre then got hit and one of the three was killed.

I see it every day.

Yep....and how often do they ever look in the mirror before they do anything? oh no wait, they can't coz the mirrors are turned into the center so they can see how cool they look as they ride along...I'm sure they've all got a tunnel vision with absolutely no awareness of what's going on around them. I cringe when pulling away from a junction in the car surrounded by a swarm of them wobbling & weaving all over the place jostling for position with the cell phone glued to their ear. I live up country and its no better up there - if anything the kids are much younger...

They have time to do these things. Why, because they're not watching videos, or setting/checking their GPS whist picking their nose. Or, doing a multitude of other things to pleasure themselves.

Some folks are just plain biased against bikers, period.

They contrive many scenarios by which they cannot be held responsible for their own short-comings and emphasize these scenarios when commenting on any incident hoping to instill their bias where-ever they breathe.

I offer condolences to the kids family and sympathy to the bus driver involved in the incident. After all, it was an accident which is a resultant of lax attitudes in this country.

Alloting blame to abrogate ones responsibilities is more than a mere Thai trait.

Jerry

Nah mate, I agree with you, its not only the 'bikers'... the car drivers are every bit as bad, if not worse, but they're all wrapped up in their steel cocoon and less likely to come to any harm as a result, so they can be ignorant with relative impunity. I myself am a biker and have been for many years and one of the things thats helped to keep my alive is my awareness of whats happening around me. I use my mirrors. These kids on the other hand can hardly be regarded as bikers - they're kids on motorcycles which is a different thing altogether. They dont have any roadsense because there's no one to teach it to them and they are more reckless in their actions than someone who's been around for a while and gained experience. In my opinion - and it is just that; my opinion - i really dont think that kids should be allowed on the roads out there mixing it with all of these distracted people going about their business in their usual arrogant manner. Many countries have minimum age limits for driving and all with prerequisite driver training, and all this for good reason, because they've sussed out that kids are just not mature enough to be responsible drivers/riders. Then of course there's the busses. For me, i think they go far too fast and I'd take odds that the brakes on them are not regularly serviced and even if they were, are not up to the job of stopping a vehicle of that size travelling at that speed in anything like a respectable stopping distance.

As you say, it was an accident and there's likely accountability for both sides here, but whatever, the net result was that yet another poor kid isn't going home.

Observation

Signal

Manouevre

I would bet they didn't do the observation, didn't signal, did the dodgy manouevre suddenly crossing 3 lanes of traffic, then did the observation way too late as already three-quarters of the way through the manouevre, switched on indicator seven-eighths of the way into the manouevre then got hit and one of the three was killed.

I see it every day.

Yep....and how often do they ever look in the mirror before they do anything? oh no wait, they can't coz the mirrors are turned into the center so they can see how cool they look as they ride along...I'm sure they've all got a tunnel vision with absolutely no awareness of what's going on around them. I cringe when pulling away from a junction in the car surrounded by a swarm of them wobbling & weaving all over the place jostling for position with the cell phone glued to their ear. I live up country and its no better up there - if anything the kids are much younger...

I dont know why we TV'ers bother getting so uptight argueing about it all coz at the end of the day, they really couldn't give a sh*t what we think anyway. Most Thais are surprised we can even walk upright, let alone have opinions which may even be worthy of consideration. From my side, I think that anyone who shows even the slightest interest in being a politician should immediately be precluded from ever being one, and that goes for every country, not just here. Bunch of self serving bags of hot air if you ask me

I have to admit to being on the receiving end of this kind of behaviour a bit more regularly lately all the same...

I don't go to bars but still think Issan is the mostly ghastly area with probably the worst corruption, poor infrastructure, boring landscape and decidedly primitive health care. Oddly there is more Issan music in Bangkok than Issan, if you like it there then good for you.

There are an increasing number of Farangs who do not share your view.

There is more corruption per square kilometre in Pattaya than you can shake a stick at - and that is just the Farangs - never mind the imported Thais.

If you think Isaan is ghastly just come and have a beer on my patio, watching the sun down with khao Phanom Rung on one side and khao Pribad on the other.Copy of DSC03402.JPG

Is this photo your view from your patio..?

Encouraged. Encouraged. I repeat encouraged. Is this a comedy routine? Why not just simply enforce the law? Do you know how long it would take for EVERYONE to wear helmets here, if the penalty for not wearing one was confiscation of your bike, and the payment of 5,000 baht to get it back? One day. Nationwide. One day. Everyone would wear a helmet in one day. And thousands of lives would be saved. Thousands of lives. The lack of helmet enforcement is a boil on the face of Thailand. In a country where driving is as dangerous as it is here, not wearing a helmet is a bit like playing Russian roulette, with three bullets in the barrel. It is ridiculously dangerous. I would never even consider leaving the house without my helmet. Ever. It is just too risky. My life is just too complicated without a broken skull. The head hitting the concrete is not a pretty sight.

And putting in prison the people who cause accidents would save ten's of thousands of lives. I fail to understand why people just moan about helmet use, which has NO input in reducing accidents!

No, it wouldn't reduce the number of accidents, however; it would absolutely reduce the number of fatalities caused as a result of those accidents

In the case of cars hitting motor bikes, i doubt it, in the case of a rider slipping off their bike, possibly. But i would still question the cause of the slip, if sand, bad road, diesel etc, there is still a cause to be stopped, rather than forcing people to wear protection in case you are in an accident.

I do get what you're trying to say - concentrate on reducing the number of accidents as less accidents should = less fatatalities, but the truth of the matter is that even coming off a bike at relatively low speeds (less than 30kph) there's a very real danger of fatal head injuries being sustained. A friend of mine was clipped by a car that was just slightly too early pulling out, the bike took a wobble and he fell off. He was only doing 20 odd kph as he'd just pulled out of a junction, he was a bit roughed up but his wife was less lucky. She hit her head on the pavement, was in a coma for 3 months and then died as a result of her injuries. If she'd been wearing a helmet, she'd have walked away from that one. I get the impression (sorry no stats to back up my suspicion) that many of the accidents we're talking about in Thailand would involve this type of low speed 'get-off's' and if this is the case, then why not take steps to protect yourself and likely save your life?

I also never quite got why all the little girls who are so determined to keep the sun off their face incase they get "see dum" thet they wobble around with their jacket pulled up over their face to the extent that they cannot possibly have anything like a safe field of vision - why not just wear a helmet? No see dum, two hands on the bars and a piece of kit that may save their life on their head.... incredible...!!

Encouraged. Encouraged. I repeat encouraged. Is this a comedy routine? Why not just simply enforce the law? Do you know how long it would take for EVERYONE to wear helmets here, if the penalty for not wearing one was confiscation of your bike, and the payment of 5,000 baht to get it back? One day. Nationwide. One day. Everyone would wear a helmet in one day. And thousands of lives would be saved. Thousands of lives. The lack of helmet enforcement is a boil on the face of Thailand. In a country where driving is as dangerous as it is here, not wearing a helmet is a bit like playing Russian roulette, with three bullets in the barrel. It is ridiculously dangerous. I would never even consider leaving the house without my helmet. Ever. It is just too risky. My life is just too complicated without a broken skull. The head hitting the concrete is not a pretty sight.

And putting in prison the people who cause accidents would save ten's of thousands of lives. I fail to understand why people just moan about helmet use, which has NO input in reducing accidents!

No, it wouldn't reduce the number of accidents, however; it would absolutely reduce the number of fatalities caused as a result of those accidents

According to Gov.uk, motorcycle is OK too. check here:

https://www.gov.uk/non-gb-driving-licence/y/visitor_to_gb/other

cheers...

Yes mate, when I read that too and I had to laugh.

I reckon it's been re-written on there up-dated quick answer web site by an illegal immigrate.

The e.g. bit about ( you can drive any small vehicle (eg car or motorcycle) listed on your licence for 12 months.

I answered the ( is there anything wrong with page ) replying with :- is a 1400cc Harley Night Rod or a Yamaha 1000cc R1 classed as small. No reply yet.

hahahaha - yeah, I wonder where my 'Busa would fit in on their scale too right enough... from what I've gathered though, they dont really 'do' humour...so dont go holdin yer breath

Addonvalue, I'd like to chuck in my tuppenceworth if you dont mind, but first I'd like to tell you a little bit about me so you know just how difficult this is for me to say... I like to think of myself as a biker. First bike at 9 years old and never been without one in my life ever since. I've had some good times on them, and i've had some real sad times because of them too...but thats just the way it is bein a biker. However; now, I've got a son of my own, 25yr old and he's after a motorcycle but I'm damned if i'm going to help him get one - and that's in the UK. Thailand....absolutely no <deleted> chance under god's creation that I would allow any family member of mine to ride a motorcycle around here, but that goes tenfold for Bangkok. Safety gear....forget it. The safest thing you could do in my book...especially if - as you say - they dont even like motorcycles, is put them in a taxi - and in BKK that's saying something. Have you never seen them pi$$ed up or off their nut on whatever poison you care to think of, jump in the car/truck/bus/whatever and straight on the cellphone while screeching off squinting at the phone through one eye coz the other's shut because of the smoke from the fag in their gob - and you're about to allow your kids to go out in that..? Up to you....

According to Gov.uk, motorcycle is OK too. check here:

https://www.gov.uk/non-gb-driving-licence/y/visitor_to_gb/other

cheers...

Gents,

thank you all for your input - much appreciated. There are, it would seem, more than a few if's, but's and uncertainties about the whole affair, so I'll maybe drop DVLA a quick mail and see what they have to say on the matter, however; I suspect that as stevenl says, I may end up in the face of some home-grown shitty rules. They dont make it easy to be law-abiding sometimes.... I'm also fully aware that given my history there, insurance is not going to be cheap, but it will i reckon be cheaper than taxi-ing all over the country - i nearly sh1t myself the last time i had to take a taxi there..... £40 to cross Aberdeen (15mins) and that was about 3 years ago.... I do have 5 yrs Thai licence and i did have full UK car & motorcycle licence for about 20 years before they took it away so I'm hoping that this will count for something, however; again, given the whole "jobsworth" attitude of UK white collar 'persons' I'm not holding out a whole lot of hope in that department. I might even move back to the UK just so they HAVE to give me my licence back then leave again - just to pi$$ them off..!!

I'll give it a crack and let you know how i get on...

Crisp - yeh mate, thats what i thought too. The thing with the new licences ie the credit card ones, is that they expire after 10 years so you have to update the photo, but the paper part lasts until you're 70. Thing is that I lost my licence and when I went to apply to get my licence back, they told me that under some "new EU rule" as I was no longer resident in UK, I was no longer eligible to hold a UK licence, therefore, they would not renew it for me and that I would have to apply for a driving licence in my new country of residence. I wouldn't like to ever have to resit UK driving tests however, so I would have liked to have kept my UK one active, but I guess thats all a bit academic now...

Yeah..? Brilliant. Cheers for that beano....no issues with insuring vehicles or any of that nonsense..? I've got a couple of motorcycles in the shed and at least one of them is coming out...

Apologies if this topic's been raised before - but I'm away to head back to UK for a few weeks with the missus and wondered about how this works. I had a full UK licence for donkeys years but for one reason or another ended up losing it for a few years in 2008. I attempted to get it back after the ban was up in 2011 but I was living here by then and they effectively told me to pi$$ off. The licence has expired now (as they do every 10 years for the photo) and i've kinda kissed it goodbye, but now I'm driving on a 5yr Thai licence and wondered how I go about driving back home legally using it...??

cheers...

Looks like the Ninja 1000 is being brought in by Kawi in 2014 at 629K (without the hard bags).

Hmmm.... thats kinda interesting now...

y'know....I'm certain they just do it to try and pi$$ us off.... unbelievable

As a few posters have already said here, I'll fit in where ever I am. It all comes down to whether you want to or not I guess...

That said, last tme I went home for a visit, I was standing in a taxi queue one night when an African gentleman tried to jump the queue. I told him rather bluntly that this was unacceptable - I almost ended up getting lifted by the police as being a bloody racist. If it wasn't for the intervention of an elderly Portuguese couple who were standing behind me in the queue who told them I had used no racist remarks or comments, I'd have been spending the weekend in the cells for sure. Incredible...!! As a white male caucasian, it appears that I now have as many rights here as I do there.... so really, why would I bother going? Its nice to go see my old folks and friends once in a while, but I dont ever see myself going back. If I were ever to leave here, I think South America would be on the cards...

This is obviously a misguided attempt at solving what, sadly, is a serious problem in Thailand in general and in Pattaya in general. I have read a statistic somewhere that apparently as many as 50% (every second of us!!!) of Pattaya long-term farang residents is a current of former criminal!! Hard to believe....but then again a quick look around in most bars reveals individuals with not so bright faces covered in tats who obviously haven't spent their productive days as city bankers...

I've got a few 'tats' and didn't do particularly well in school....are you saying that makes me a criminal...?? I'd perhaps suggest that the 'city bankers' you refer to are most likely bigger crooks than most....

Are they trying to launch an oil company shakedown?

I'd guess thats exactly what they're after....