Tanuki

The majority these farangs who chose to make Thailand their homes are from low social class.

They are just behaving the way they have done in their own countries.

Hi-So Thais look down on them.

Huh?

you are on their turf, what if the positions were reversed,

would you like some farang telling you how to do your job?

Yeah the problem is they are NOT doing their job friend.

Your frustration is not justified. If you do not like "sticking your head in", the simple solution

is , don't use taxis. Either walk or use a bus.

Taxis may be a public service, but they have every right to decide who to let into their cars

and where they want to go, as much as you can decide who to let any salesman into your

house.

Wrong.

I'm not a prude by any means but the writer of the PG article has displayed an enviable grasp of English slang, "hogans" (?), "fun bags", "tits", etc. that is inappropriate in an allegedly serious newspaper.

I wonder why he used the word "prostitute" later in his piece, not "brass" or "whore", for example?

haha but who says it is a serious paper?

Pictures! Or it never happened.

umm you want to see pictures of a ladyboy's fake cans?

I feel so much safer now I mean talk about an organization that is constantly on the ball. They can't even stop illegal goods from being sold openly on Sukhumvit.

I'm not going to push her into a confrontation with a fellow Thai;

Firstly, why would you want to push anyone into a confrontation with anyone, irrespective of their nationality?

Secondly, you have your own, kinda 'these are the rules, I'm gonna make people stick to them' way of getting taxis, but your wife and plenty of other people (myself included) have their own way of doing things.

Why do you want to change her behaviour? What difference would it make? If you flag a taxi down, state your destination and you get "ไม่ไป" as the response, get another one.

Relax. This is small stuff. You could, if you wanted to, turn it into big 'I know I'm right and I'm gonna prove it' stuff, but where would it get you?

It might get you to where you're going slightly quicker, but it might also get you nowhere, fast.

Why pick a fight over taxis? Hardly worth it really. Attempting to modify other people's behaviour is, in my opinion, rarely successful, contentious, argumentative, annoying, and slightly egotistical.

Many things are cultural differences, some things are just differences in the way individuals behave.

I think this is the latter.

you get "ไม่ไป" as the response.....Most of us can't read Thai and since this is a forum in English....

Strange that you are against changing people's behaviour and find it egotistical yet you are attempting to change the OP's behaviour are you not? Much like the OP I feel that people should do their job, especially when it's the law. This passive approach of allowing these taxi drivers to flaunt the law is only encouraging them to continue.

I'm a dual citizen of Canada and USA and used to fly to HK or SG on my Canadian passport and come back in to Thailand on the US one. Never an issue at the airports.

After having almost no problems with taxis over the last 8 years, it seems to get worse since a year or so. Refused trips, no meter, or not even stopping. Still, many Thai people ask before entering the cab, means they approve or accept the situation.

I started to take photos before I leave the car, to at leat scare the driver.

Two weeks ago I asked a co-worker to complain about following incident on the complaint hotline:

In the middle of my trip the driver got a phone call and I could understand that it was about picking up a passenger and the price for this trip would be 400 Baht. After finishing we stopped the car and he asked me to get out. "Sorry, accident".

Let's see what happnes with the complain. They promised to call back and let us know the result.

Yeah I wouldn't hold my breath for that. I'm still waiting for a call back three weeks after calling to complain about the situation at Siam Paragon taxi pick up area. There is a security guard on a bull horn asking taxis drivers if they will take passengers to location X or Y. After sitting in the queue for over 30 minutes watching taxis drive off without picking up anyone I asked the guy why he was asking since the law states taxis cannot refuse a fare?? He just waved me off. I wrote an email to the management of Siam Paragon since it does concern their customers and maybe they would be interested to know that their own staff was a part of the problem. I guess they are not interested at all since they have also not replied. Just pathetic really and disappointing to know that a place like Siam Paragon can't even get it's act together to at least write back when a customer has a complaint.

"Driving over the speed limit results in a higher risk of a crash or severe accident. As the speed of the vehicle increases, the driver tends to have less control over the vehicle, and the chances of taking evasive action decreases as well. The effect of a collision that a vehicle travelling at higher speed incurs is much higher than the effect of collision at a lower speed. The severity of injury greatly increases as the impact of the collision increases."

NEVER!!!

On a serious point. A small step in the right direction would be to have chevrons painted on the road, showing approximately how far away you need to be from the car in front, in case of an emergency braking incident. I know not many people would use them ( & if people did then someone would pull in front of them), but I don't believe people have a clue about safe braking distances & may make a few people think!

Assuming they are capable of thought.

Kitti Rattanasombat, the director of Tha Sala Hospital, told Thai national newspaper Khao Sod that “normal people don’t give birth to eggs”.
Mr Kitti added that women were usually pregnant for nine months before giving birth to a baby.
He admitted that abnormal births were possible, but insisted that giving birth to a “duck egg, chicken egg or reptile egg” was something that does not happen.

Thanks you Mr. Kitti for the explanation. Awesome facts. You might want to look for the CP stamp on the egg, that could solve this mystery once and for all.

we took some friends who were visiting thailand for the first time,we were with them most of the time otherwise it was the wf's brother,we were stopped outside by a man in a dark suit and what looked like a name id.arround his neck and he said the same thing as it was it was busy so we carried on walking up the road i spotted this bloke on his mobile talking to another pillock who i spotted running from the entrance to the pier,he approached us and he tried the same thing.all this has been going on for donkey's years in full view of the police

at one of the most if not the most visited places in thailand.

Well 'police' has a loose interpretation here right I mean are they really police as we know them? My parents were in town a few weeks back and were wondering why, on Sukhumvit road they have stands selling sex toys, viagra, valium etc., all of which are illegal here, and the police were standing right next to the guys selling this stuff and having a friendly conversation then just walked away...carry on.

I have never experienced this habit in the hundreds of houses, apartments and rooms I have either lived in or visited in LOS

Same here, being here for almost 2 decades and travelled all over the country, have never noticed this.

Can't say that I have either in my 7 years here. Lived with 2 different ladies but like another poster said, we had a maid come to clean twice a week.

Simple. Just check with immigration as his accommodation will have informed them of his whereabouts.

?? What ? Please elaborate.

Technically the immigration has a list where very farang is staying in every house/hotel in the country every night.

Of course what is the LAW and what happens are two different things.

haha yes also NOBODY will be throwing water out of the back of pick up trucks this Songkran because in Thailand the law is the law

People are not allowed to drive on the wrong side of the road, after market side cars are not allowed on motorbikes, prostitution and gambling are illegal, taxi drivers are not allowed to refuse fares...... blah blah blah

yet ANOTHER waste of time to even mention to us that ANYTHING will be enforced. Would bet my life savings and future earnings that I WILL be splashed with water from a pick up truck here in Phuket.

Thais are such law abiding citizens and always do as they are told

Hey what's next Thailand? barging into people's hotel rooms in the middle of the night for a surprise drug test.

Maybe the suspect has that dreaded illness of not being able to control himself when he get's angry?? That's going around but it usually only infects "people" with large amounts of money. Strange. I hope he gets well soon and gets the attention and rehab he needs. Not being able to control oneself when angered in the new breast cancer and deserves some kind of special rubber wrist band here in Thailand.

The driver of the following vehicle ALWAYS has the resppnsibility to not rear end the vehicle in front EVEN if they slam on the brakes suddenly

This is the law full stop, NO exceptions

even in Thailand? I thought the person with the most money or the more expensive vehicle was automatically at fault?? that seems more like thailand to me no?

“Then I used a replica gun to threaten her, because she made me angry,”

The only thing dumber than pointing a real gun at someone, is pointing replica gun at someone.

yep dumb as they get if indeed it was a replica which I doubt very much. what a turd! so where as this gotten him and really why the need for these guys to be in such a hurry in a place that is supposed to be sabai sabai. They don't seem to mind too much making you wait for everything and moving at a snails pace but get behind the wheel and all of the sudden...

funny story, make a u-turn to go back to the direction you wana go, then turn into the back road of big C, then turn left and then on the next trafic light go back to go torwards chalong.

now you wonder why he pull a replica gun

You want to explain what this means? The woman's decision to go where she wanted to go justified having a gun pointed at her? I don't see the humour in the story.

Im sure she was trying to avoid the long line up of traffic due to the retarded road project there at central. these rodents driving the tour vans here are complete a-holes that think they own the road and anyone in front of them needs to move out of their way. It's a real mess on the roads of phuket. These tour vans don't even wait in line at stop lights but pass everyone up and sit in the middle of the intersection sometime blocking lanes of open traffic. NO police whatsoever, absolutely ridiculous road planning as far as having to go way out of your way in one direction to get where you are going because of the islands in the road and closed round abouts...what else to say when a so called man pulls a gun on a young mother and child except amazing thailand!

So do we all take it then that he was fed up with his ex wife hanging around, got the family round and told them he is going to snuff her, got the gun out, killed her, and then everyone backs his claim that not only was he stupid enough to have it in the first place, he also kept it loaded, kept the safety off, got it out to show everyone, and accidentally put his finger on the trigger and then got nudged by the waiter bringing him his sticky rice. Thai Divorce.

Apparently the family don't want him charged as it was an 'accident' but surely there is a law somewhere in Thailand that says it's illegal to carry a loaded sub machine into a public restaurant and start brandishing it about. At least I hope so!

Nope. Nope not at all, perfectly normal here.