MaxYakov

2 hours ago, jacko45k said:

Were they still looking for that missing Malaysian aircraft?

Excellent question! All I have is this interesting (what appears to be) a sonar image that could have been from the search - from an article in The Sun.co.uk HERE [link].

Yep, the shaft leak is a minor item compared to say the F-35 fighter situation IMHO.

I see this carrier has the typical ski-ramp rise on the runway at the bow. U.S. carriers did not adopt this feature, apparently. Does any carrier expert out there know why not? I'm a retired submariner, but have always been an aviation enthusiast.

Is it going to be electric plug-in, solar powered, or will they cop-out and make it a hybrid power train? They have to consider climate change and the future of the heat-threatened polar bears.

On 12/18/2017 at 1:11 PM, watcharacters said:

 

 

This is an unusual drunk driving video.  I've seen a lot of them.   In this one the driver appears to be driving straight and then suddenly veers off to his right and slams against the parked truck.    Usually drunk drivers weave a lot.    This almost appears intentional to me.

I'd say he passed out with his foot heavy on the gas pedal.

They needed to assign a "driver watch" to the left front seat passenger and rotate the watch as necessary. Glad my visa run days are over, although I did bail on one van driver who was too reckless for my taste. Bummed a ride into the next town and took a NCA bus into Bangkok.

My GF told me today that a car hit her and severely injured her while she was riding her motorbike. She is very competent and careful even when cycling.

She said it was an "accident" but could not describe it or how it happened. Thinking about this I came to his conclusion - There aren't any "accidents". People get injured or die on the road for the following three reasons:

1) Human error, incompetence, reduced capability, distraction, recklessness, etc.

2) Equipment or road failure - possibly due to #1, above.

3) Natural events such as lightning, flash floods, etc.

IMHO, none of the above are "accidents"! They are root causes which result in untoward consequences that kill and injure humans on the roads.

"Far more men die than women and the group most likely to perish on the roads are aged 15-29."

:

"Three out four who die are male".

Think of all the young Thai women who want to start families, but can't because the Thai men have been killing themselves on motorbikes and any other means at hand.

I know they are out there and are patiently looking for their mate.

3 hours ago, kotsak said:

Reminds me of the videos posted by a some guys on Youtube who use the BeamNG software

 

 

No living soul was either injured or killed in the making of this video (probably). Maybe tourists should visit a virtual Thailand using modern video technology. This would save a lot of lives. I never felt compelled to actually go to Ayutthaya (or most other places in Thailand for that matter - for reasons that should be obvious). If I do decide to go somewhere, it certainly won't be in any kind of van!

Title correction: "15-year, free education" should be "15-year, paid-for-by-somebody-else education". I wonder who the "somebody-else" is in reality.

After venting my frustration on some woman driver of a van who had taken a weird left turn from the #2 Sukhumvit lane onto Soi 19 almost running me down, I turned around and there was standing the RTP traffic control (such as it was - Friday evening rush hour) officer. He noticed my exasperation and smiled and said to me:

Thailand!

On the bright side, swim class should be very convenient.

I guess referring to it as the "sunken market" wouldn't have been as funny.

3 hours ago, GarryP said:

It would be interesting to find out how many of the motorcycle fatalities were caused by third parties, i.e., riding correctly /safely but taken out by a car or pickup driving recklessly. I believe that it would make up quite a percentage of total motorcyclist fatalities (20%?). 

 

 I ride very defensively in Thailand, but I have no control over the other road users.        

I was wondering the same thing earlier, especially being mowed down from behind, my greatest fear and one would think feared by motorcyclists as well. Oh, that's right! Thai motorcyclists and their passengers are fearless, pardon me.

16 hours ago, Airbagwill said:

Road safety for dummies - it’s a lot more than “driving”

 

< --- snipped --- >

 

Despite new roads (all poorly designed and constructed), more advance vehicles - the death toll continues to rise and this won’t stop until someone in authority gets informed that it is not DRIVNG, it is ROAD SAFETY that needs to be addressed.

As a cyclist and can say that in nine years of cycling in urban Bangkok, it was bad driving on the part of motor vehicle operators that caused me to have four collisions with their vehicles resulting in minor injury to me on each occurrence. This doesn't count the many times I've been cut off or otherwise ignored on a daily basis by motor vehicle operators that I've had to compensate for - often having to emergency brake. Nor does it count the few times I've been hit by a motor vehicle and not been injured.

I've never been injured by road engineering, conditions or maintenance issues even considering in what bad condition many of the roads and sidewalks are in. So, in my experience, skill, alertness and traffic rule observance by the motor vehicle operators (or lack thereof) comprises something like 95% of my "road safety" issues. Often operating similarly to a motorbike/cycle on the road, it's understandable to my why their mortality and injury rate is so high, especially with the much higher speeds they operate at relative to mine.

I eventually came to the realization that cyclists should not be sharing the road with motor vehicles in any country, especially Thailand. However, this is not news. The Danes already know this and have dealt with it in Copenhagen.

1 hour ago, canopus1969 said:

Calm down people, it's only a way to control the population numbers  

And the injuries that are 40 times the mortality rate, according to the OP (and with permanent disability running 4 times at 100,000/per year)? Poor as Thailand is can they really afford (what I call) this "motorbike disease"?

On 10/27/2017 at 12:24 PM, MaxYakov said:

How long before a done carrying a high-explosive payload hits an aircraft?

21 hours ago, attrayant said:

 

My gosh you're right!  We'd better draft a law that says No Bombing of Aircraft with High Explosives.  I am sure terrorists are very honest and will dutifully follow such laws without question.

So can we depend you to run along and take care of that for us? 

How long before a done carrying a high-explosive payload hits an aircraft?

One man's sufficiency is another's underachievement.

2 hours ago, djayz said:

Welcome to the 21st century Thailand! "Free money" from machines in Falangistan... (I know the money was paid in advance as a deposit). 

 

How will they react if they ever find out that, in many westerm countries, stores actually charge customers for plastic bags! Hence very few plastic shopping bags blowing around the streets, littering the countryside or clogging drains and wee water ways. 

 

Amazing Falangistan. 

I actually carry 2 or 3 plastic bags with me and use them in 7/11 and FoodLand or elsewhere. In California, last year, I discovered that not having your own bag could really add up as most stores charged for bags and they were not cheap.

My neighbor has a contract with a company that supplies 20 liter water bottles for around 55 baht so he gets one for me when he orders his. I decanter them into recycled 1 1/2 liter plastic water bottles for daily use.

I give my recyclable containers away to apartment maintenance and they quickly disappear. I probably wouldn't take the trouble to haul them down to such a machine unless there was fairly big money or credits involved. I was a roadside bottle collector also as a kid and this first encounter with capitalism (for lack of a better word) was very satisfying.

Not that again! Do they have the CO2 credits for that?

"There were 100 meter braking marks on the road that is in Tha Yang district of Petchaburi province."

Wonder if the anti-lock brakes, if the pickup had them, checked-out. Tires do not stop a vehicle very well when they heat up and liquify when locked-up. They do generate a lot of smoke, though.

"The government is willing to provide support and send out officials to provide guidance in order to work together."

Maybe Reagan got it right?:

17 minutes ago, jenny2017 said:

 

 Booze and people who were educated in a system that makes people lose face and students who never fail, no matter if they attend class, plus the national pride that's being thrilled into their minds from Kindergarten on to eventually tertiary level. 

 

     Ladies and gentlemen. I'll repeat it again that education ( or the lack of it) is the key to so many (homemade) problems people are facing in a land, where the majority see themselves as "World Class Citizens", after an education at a World Class Standard School with bamboo sticks. 

The majority of Thai people see themselves as "World Class Citizens", do they?

7 minutes ago, ratcatcher said:

 

 

The failure of electric vehicles is like the failure of socialism - the people simply didn't do it correctly before, so let's try it again. Or maybe not.

They can very cheaply and simply convert their gas stations to drive-thru Amazon Cafes and problem solved! They can keep the coffee in the underground gasoline tanks and heat it up before serving. It would still taste better than FoodLand coffee, I'd bet.