MaxYakov

39 minutes ago, LukKrueng said:

were the arrests mentioned in the op made by the traffic police???

Please read This Reply.

In case you missed it, you may want to check out This Reply as well.

38 minutes ago, Just Weird said:

Geez...just because a few illegal foreigners have been arrested doesn't mean that that is where the RTP's focus is.  It means that this team was engaged in fulfilling their particular job while other officers allocated to other areas were doing theirs! 

 

It's amazing how many irrational members of Thaivisa's The-RTP-Can't-Do-Right-For-Doing-Wrong-Club seem to think that the officers referred to in the OP are the only officers in the police force!

Sorry, missed again! I didn't even imply that immigration were the only RTP officers, but I have been off-topic since my initial reply, haven't I?

Then, pray tell, where is and should be the RTP's focus if you were making strategic decisions for law enforcement in Thailand?

Irrational Max 

Were the "semi-automatic" or "automatic" and, if semi, did they have "bump stocks"? What were their muzzle velocities and magazine volumes and could they be considered as "assault water guns"?

7 hours ago, Expatthailover said:

As you would expect ANYWHERE in the world

I would not expect it in the USA where it's often termed "government-employment welfare" or somesuch. I experienced it close-up and personal when I worked for the (bloated) US government as a contractor in Washington DC.

He does bear a slight resemblance to "Johnny Cash", doesn't he? (The reference to "cash" is purely coincidental, BTW)

Those women in the video were, indeed, a bit "touchy" and overreactive (hands and feet on style) themselves, no?

I wonder how many drivers would do an emergency pullover or lane change in order to let a ambulance which did not have its lights flashing and did not have siren turn-on (i.e. not indicating it is in emergency mode)?

Does anyone know of a law in any country requiring yielding the right-of-way to an ambulance that is not indicating an emergency?

"Put wallets and purses in into larger carry on carry-on bags and to remove temptation, Suvarnabhumi airport official tells passengers"

Translation errors or ignorance of the English language?

Ref: www.dictionary.com

14 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Motorcyclists travel on the wrong side frequently on the highways, where there are motorcycle lanes. The accepted etiquette seems to be the scooter going the correct way pulls out into the left hand lane to allow the other scooter to pass on the inside. People going the wrong way are usually travelling slowly. I don't get myself in a lather about it.

However, I do marvel at the institutionalised stupidity of Australian road authorities, where it is an offence for a motorcycle to travel in the emergency lanes, when they could reduce the two-wheel accident statistics at the stroke of a pen.

"A recent study conducted by the National Coroners Information System (NCIS) in Australia has revealed 29 closed case fatalities (and at least a dozen case fatalities still under coronial investigation) that had been reported to Australian coroners where a person was "struck in an emergency lane after their vehicle had stopped" between July 2000 and November 2010."

Ref: Wikipedia [link]

34 minutes ago, jkcjag said:

Riding a motorcycle in Thailand seems to be an extension of walking, i.e. Thais don't see it as riding a vehicle that should obey road rules, they see it as a means to walk more quickly, and therefore the motorcycle goes where ever a pedestrian can go, and the same rules apply as would for a pedestrian, i.e. none.

There are a few universal rules:

1) Vehicle with the most mass * speed has the right-of-way

2) Don't be in the wrong place at the wrong time

58 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Just curious:  if she was speeding and then hit the brakes for whatever reason and the car began hydroplaning and went off the road, would that leave any braking evidence on the pavement after the rain had finished?

 

It's a good question. The vehicle is advertised to have anti-lock brakes and was probably spinning and she may not have even gotten it together quickly enough to brake (again?) and then what are the anti-locks going to do? Anyway, a couple of RTP officers seem to be indicating the path of the vehicle in the grass at 1:11 in this video which appears to be some distance before it hit the tree (probably somewhat airborne) so I'd bet whatever braking was occurring was not very effective (especially not  in the grass and/or with the vehicle somewhat airborne).

If she had hit the guardrail instead of going off the road several feet before the guardrail started, she might have survived. I guess, as usual, wrong place/wrong time/wrong speed (aka Murphy's law). A question I have is why did not the guardrail extend further to cover the obvious off-road hazard of the tree as well as what else it was guarding (a greater slope or canal)?

I believe the deeper tire tracks in the above video that are closer to the guardrail are from the tow vehicle that pulled the wreck back up onto the road because they are very deep and there is corresponding mud/debris on the shoulder.

50 minutes ago, Radar501 said:

I spent eight years as an accident investigator, and this collision bears the hallmarks of a drowsy/inattentive driver.  Sadly, it is a common occurrence  on rural roads, although I cannot eliminate other possible scenarios such as swerving to avoid a dog or oncoming truck.

 

A vehicle travelling at say 100 kilometres per hour is doing 28 metres per second.   A micro lapse of concentration and the car can stray off the road into a tree.   In my experience, very rarely is there any evidence of skid marks leading up to the point of impact in these types of prangs.   (scuff marks yes, skid marks no.)  Just not enough time to re-focus and react.

  

 

If you look at this video at 0:08-0:09 it appears to be a rather good (for Thailand) two-lane each way divided road even with a substantial guardrail, which her car managed to just miss. Also her trajectory appeared to be in the direction of traffic, but reversed in order to hit the tree on the driver's side (indicating that she had spun at least 180 degrees or so before hitting the tree) and hard enough to knock the trunk lid completely off the vehicle.

The video also shows the vehicle's tracks in the grass just missing the guardrail, but since there was a steep downslope so the car continued ballistically hitting the tree well above ground level and then proceeded down-slope beyond the tree. My gut-hypothesis is abrupt braking or hydroplaning on a wet/slippery surface (to spin the vehicle and cause loss of control at high-speed).

1 hour ago, HiSoLowSoNoSo said:

The car she used (BMW X1) got a 5 star safety ratings ( https://cars.usnews.com/cars-trucks/bmw/x1/safety ) If she was not speeding and driving in 90 km/h she should have survived even a side impact with the tree.

It got only a "Good" rating across-the-board for all impacts from the IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety) at that site and a five-star rating for side impact (four stars for frontal and rollover) from the NHTSA. Maybe if she had been wearing a DOT-rated helmet judging from the condition of the vehicle (or all airbags had fired and had time and position to be effective) she would have had more of a chance.

PS: I've always felt that (logically) relatively high-speed (> 30/40 kph) all MV operators/passengers should wear helmets airbags notwithstanding. For the same reason they wear seat belts, if you have to ask. Of course, that won't fly with the public or law enforcement even though I hypothesize it would save lives.

"He said police did not find Natnicha’s cellphone at the scene either."

Did they check her purse?(Ref. reply/video of rescue crew removing personal items from the vehicle):

One of the rescue works also pulled out from the wreck what could have been a cellphone or a 1000 baht note prior to removing the purse (above video link). There was an RTP officer standing next to them as they removed the items.

Would anyone be surprised if cellphone use was a contributing factor?

With the condition of the wreck, I'd say the cellphone could be anywhere in the vicinity of the accident scene or picked-up by a souvenir hunter.

Apparently her car was airborne in a driver-side to tree position when it hit the tree and missed the guardrail entirely. The guardrail did not cover the entire roadside in that stretch (seemingly only the higher portion) by this video.  I was wondering, from the earlier videos, how her car managed to jump the guardrail. This answers that question.She might have suddenly hit the brakes hard and unintentionally spun the car - did that once myself on a wet road with a similar result.

Wow! That beamer is really bent. I guess the side-impact airbags didn't do much good... I remember her well as the young "Lilly" in "Werewolf in Bangkok" 2005, one of the few Thai movies I've actually liked. Sad loss of a young life.

This ban cannot stand.

Sounds reasonable to me for a country that takes off work and throws water at each other for a week or so while a segment of them tries suicide by motorbike.

2 hours ago, Thian said:

And he even modified his rear tire to go faster, who cares about making an emergency stop?!

Faster "off-the-line" high-traction, pursuit-performance tire. You seen RTP motorcycle cops pursuing traffic offenders, right? Right? Naaah, on second thought it's probably an impounded bike and the officer was elected to take to the impound lot. 

11 hours ago, Samui Bodoh said:

One has to assume, at least for the moment, that this is another case where there is no point taking the word of the US President seriously; that is a sad commentary, but if there are no plans then this is simply more noise.

 

Is the US going to militarize the US-Mexico border? I doubt it as I doubt whether there is support for this in Congress or the military.

 

The US really needs to be careful here. Yes, the US is a much bigger, much more powerful nation than Mexico, but to date things have been quite easy as the Mexican President has been quite accommodating to the US.  If Obrador wins the election and rallies the Mexican people behind a policy of standing up to Trump, then the US is going to have MANY MANY problems. What happens if Mexico lets it be known that it won't try to stop anyone from crossing its territory to get to the US? Think 'surge'! Mexico, even though it is the weaker of the two countries, can cause a great deal of grief to the US, and based on how Trump has treated Mexico to date, I suspect that there would be a lot of support for a Mexican leader who says" Up Yours, Yankee!"

 

Errrr... wouldn't that be "Tuyo Yanqui"?

Using several meters of the oncoming traffic lane as a merge lane in order to make a right turn onto a thoroughfare road from a side soi could be considered reckless driving, no? I think sane motorbike operators avoid that kind nonsense maneuver because of ... well... what happened. Yeah, maybe the victim didn't react to his benefit to the untoward situation, but this is why one doesn't pull that kind of stunt (reversing for long distances into oncoming traffic) - it could have been a car or a truck and the outcome would have been quite different. The other video link provided didn't work so I found this one: