DualSportBiker

It can and does happen. I have significant exposure to the changes. When I started riding motorcycles upcountry here, there was no way in hell any car would move out of the way of a faster bike. That behaviour persisted until the mid 2010s when there was a clear and distinct change in driver habit. I won't bore you with how change was effected, but now when I ride a slight majority move out of the right-hand lane when I approach. A good half of those signal before they more left. On top of that, behaviour around ambulances has improved significantly here in Bangkok. Again, this was not the case for many years, but now there is every chance that almost all drivers will move out of the way. Could they do better? Sure - they seem to not notice until the ambulance is upon them, but they do move. Your negativity and unfounded belief that Thais will not change is one of the assumptive behaviours Thais ascribe to us all. I have to make an effort to differentiate myself from you and your ilk.

Not all visitors here do come from countries with 'much stricter road safety...' Many come from places with perhaps not equally lax, but sufficiently lax to warrant better controls. BUT, the current Thai tests are not better controls. The written test has mistakes in it in the English version and the practical test is a parking test!

So we don't agree as I use GrabTaxi

Grab Car or Just Grab might be, but Grab Taxi is the metered price with a surcharge. The drivers make more when hired under the taxi booking than they do Grab Car. In fact the amount taken from private drivers of Grab Car is pretty offensive. The price shown when you book a taxi via Grab is an estimate and in my estimation, always significantly higher than the final price. Thai taxi costs are cheap - they meter fare has only recently changed after years stagnant at the initial fee. Drive times have not improved, fuel has increased dramatically. When meters were first introduced, fuel was around 8-11 Baht if I remember correctly... There are plenty of dishonest and unscrupulous taxi drivers, but there are also large numbers of honest and hardworking ones. The fares are too low and that is part of, not all, the incentive to lie and cheat for those who are inclined to do so. Were the fares more in line with the cost of living, the incentive to cheat would be reduced. There will always be those that prey on the newbies in tourist zones, but that needs a different mode of control.

The owner of YSS is highly litigious as well...

And? Pretty sure your original question was not restricted to any time-period. Less ancient would be the Food By Phone guy. Does that pass muster with you?

In the mid-90s, a group of Poles were busted at Don Muang for bringing in kilos of weed! Takes all sorts!

Seems like I am the only one who has seen an improvement in how ambulances get through traffic. More cars readily move out of the way than before. It all changed after the story about the driver of a car was blocking the way for an ambulance with his grandmother in. Perhaps the effect has worn off, in part or in whole. But, just yesterday I saw an ambulance slice through heavy traffic on Chaeng Wattana because most cars got out the way in time. The view that Thais will never change is bogus. I've been riding so-called big bikes here for 30 years. Behaviours have changed, but only in the past ten years. Used to be no car would move out of the right lane for bikes, even a huge convoy of obnoxiously bright GS riders would have to undertake. That is no longer the case. I ride alone, and more than 50% of the time cars will move aside. Of those that do, nearly 50% use a signal! Go figure! For all who think 'Thais will never change' I posit it is you who will not change. You have an opinion and can't entertain the idea of changing it. You might want to look up the implications of low mental plasticity... It's not complimentary :)

I think they should run an experiment. Put up content explaining the short-fall in funding for National Parks, tell non-Thais it is free to enter, but donations welcome. See how that goes. Some will donate nothing or nothing serious, but I am confident that many will make serious donations. Run this at a few popular locations with tourists and see if visits and collections change in a good way.

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?

I got into a cab here, put my belt on immediately and the driver then said, "Why are you insulting me and my driving skills?" So I would posit that some here do think that it is a reflection on the driver. Given that most men around the planet over estimate the quality of their driving skills, your observation is far from wrong.