DualSportBiker

US trade deals require 6-10 months just to gather internal requirements from industry and the various departments. Deals will not be struck, these tariffs will either continue into a significant recenssion 'cause he won't back down, or he will back down and all his lackeys will try and spin it as a win.

When the Panda ate Food By Phone they had around 20x FBP's marketing budget and they could not compete. Held out for a while, but had to concede defeat. Then at events the public face of the Panda described themselves as the company that opened the food delivery market here! That was nearly 20 years after FBP opened! I remember being stuck by the outrageous arrogance of the muppet who thought buying the company that kicked off the food delivery market here meant they got to wear the hat that said "first"! They were ten years late and spent way too much on market entry. The owner of FBP did rather well out of their late arrival!

How would you know?

I don't make such claims. Almost every new Thai I talk to does :)

If one were to live anywhere for 10 years, would that be being forced to? Or a choice? I am guessing that for most people, moving anywhere is a positive choice; "I moved to xyz for the [insert your own personal reason] climate, food, cost of living, ease of doing business, access to a large regional market, my employer paid me to be here...] Does it make sense to make such a move harder by refusing to simplify and improve every interaction one has? Colour me stupid, but I would not want to ensure everything I do is harder, less reliable, possibly fraudulent or misguided just because I lack the respect to learn even a little of the local language. I would absolutely want to reduce the chances I get taken advantage of and maximise that which I understand. I don't think people who don't are idiots. I think they are lazy, potentially arrogant, fooling themselves and willingly disrespectful to their hosts. Worrying about being perceive a novelty is ridiculous - how vain can you get?

Utter twaddle. I was at dinner a few nights ago with three long-term friends. All have MBAs, work at Thai banks or telecom companies; head of credit, head of call centre ops. None of them speak workable English. They all travel widely - making 150K ++ helps them do that.

We all learn differently. Personally I have given up on reading Thai several times, but my spoken Thai is really quite good. Or at least it is if I believe how Thais react to me. I only started to learn to read Thai after 20-odd years...

Balderdash. I reap rewards daily from my knowledge of Thai, as do the others I know who also speak fair-to-middling quality Thai. Your statement might well be driven by peeve as you can't master it.

Really? You never go anywhere - just stay in the school? You know all those bigots back home who bitch about people not learning English, or French or wherever they go and "don't integrate"? You are feeding the same fire of pushback by Thais who see idiot tourists behaving badly, violent expats kicking doctors, Indians sleeping on beaches. They can spot expats who show sweet FA respect through not making the effort to learn any of their language. To a great extent I benefit from your slovenliness as I do speak Thai, and well enough that every Thai notices. I have travelled all over Thailand for the 34 years I have been here. For the past 20 I almost always take the back roads and rarely stay in hotels that cater to tourists as a result of that. I get the occasional Thai who does not understand me, but that is usually because they are listening for English and is quickly resolved. When I travel with my Thai wife, nobody waits to talk to her in my stead. Once it is clear that talking to me is as easy as talking to another Thai, I get the inside line on all that I care about, where to stay, eat, drink, visit, scenic routes, temples of note. Thais absolutely love when people take an interest in their town, shop, food or even their life, but will not let themselves struggle to communicate. Once you can let them talk, they will. In that regard, they are no different from anyone and anywhere else. Stay in your bubble, develop a negative opinion of the locals because you reject both the need to and the way to understand them. But don't be surprised when you are treated as an ATM or told, correctly, that you are clueless about Thailand. And don't bother to have an opinion on that which you can and will never understand.

I am not blaming the road, just highlighting it is an additional factor in this specific case. Why did I leave the rest out, because we are (mostly) all aware of all the other issues that contribute to accidents. There were already a bunch of comments wailing about the same before I joind the party. However, among the contributing factors, road layout is one which is often overlooked. I took a course in Road Traffic Accident Reduction in Emerging Economies with Carnegie Mellon a few years ago. I too was surprised how much road design is a factor. But hey, learning stuff is only for people who don't instinctively know it all already...

It's a pretty badly laid out section of road and often quite busy. It could do with a significant upgrade and some escape tracks for this very purpose. RIP.

Are any of the land borders to Burma/Myanmar open for non-Thai and non-Burmese travel? And if so, given the fluidity of the situation over the border, are there any up-to-date resources to check on a week-by-week basis? Mae Sai, Chiang Rai - Tachileik: Mae Sot, Tak - Myawaddy: Ban Phu Nam Ron - Htee Kee: Ranong - Kawthuang: I have a Thai friend in Mae Sot who ships product to Myanmar - says it is open for transport, but can't confirm/deny non-Thai passage. 2 and 3 are my targets, just need to pop over in May. I would be driving... Most grateful for any information or resources

What a tragic way to learn a simple lesson. He needs to tell that story to a camera and have an influencer post it. You would be doing Thailand a huge favour were you able to get that done. You can IM me his number and I will see what I can do as this topic is one I lose sleep over...

Understood, defs your decision in that situation. Would you were you with passengers? It would be reassuring to know you take others' safety to heart...

Do you care if your corpse bounces around and injures/kills another passenger in the car?