Classic Ray

Without bothering to publish the actual website address. i can foresee many scam agents diverting potential applicants to their sites to traffic and cheat them.

And yet many Thai restaurants rarely offer sugar-free drinks and 3 in 1 coffee remains ubiquitous. Of course hiso sugar producers don’t want to see consumption reduced as it hits profits. The tax just diverts some of the profit to the Government.

Not a mention of increasing police mobile patrols to detect speeders and drunk drivers. Just providing (probably unpaid) vocational students to perform repair services on EVs. When will the first one be killed by the high voltages involved, or the first unquenchable fire happens? At least it keeps the police overtime bill low and makes up for those enjoying Songkran rather than doing their duty. The situation will not change until the Government and Thai people accept they have a problem and really want to reduce road collisions. But I won’t hold my breath on that one due to the fatalism and apathy shown so far.

Racial discrimination and xenophobia alive and well here!

Are Italian Thai and the Chinese Railway company assisting in the rescue operation? Both companies have access to heavy equipment and staff they use during their construction operations throughout Thailand that could be temporarily diverted to help. i have heard no mention of their involvement, except for the four Chinese caught trying to remove documents.

How do they know if the offender is a tourist, since he hasn’t been traced yet? He could be a permanent resident, or a citizen. Very quick to blame here without establishing the facts.

The wet surface is not the problem, it is the excessive speed for the conditions and possibly the physical condition of the bus that is. Like lots of things here, the surface appearance of the vehicle is deemed far more important than the underlying mechanics and frame. The latter can have been rebodied repeatedly. Time for the Government to forget about posturing for car scrappage schemes and set about encouraging the manufacture of new buses and the scrapping and breaking up of the old ones. Training and regulation of drivers could also be overhauled if they want to raise Thailand’s reputation as a safe holiday destination.

Maybe it could be sold to the State Audit Office as their new HQ, kill two birds with one stone.

When you have dealt with as many collisions as I did in my former career and watched non-seat belt wearers die , you don’t need any convincing to make you and your passengers wear seat belts. for all the know-alls whinging about fire, drowning etc, these sort of incidents are very rare and account in most countries for less than 5% of collisions. You stand a much better chance of survival and escape if you are wearing your belt when it collides and catches fire or enters the water.

If fuelled by petrol or gas, there is always a strong risk of fire. There should be some regulation mandating the use of diesel or other less flammable fuel when passengers are carried. Proper risk management.

I would have thought that there are many jobs in the military eg admin, catering, medic, driver etc etc that a ladyboy or woman could do even if the Army are not ready for them to be combat troops. I see no reason to exempt either category from the draft.

Possibly a dry run with a stolen bag to cast suspicion on the Chinese owner.

Modern coaches have deceleration devices to assist long descents without excessive use of the brakes. Also early change down of gears by a competent driver will assist deceleration. Unfortunately both modern coaches and competent drivers are in a minority in Thailand.

Even the rich cannot control their greed.

Why didn’t his “friend” delete the video instead of circulating it?

Surprised that the police at the airport don’t use sniffer dogs to check the luggage as they do at many Western locations. perhaps more interested in illegal imports than exports.

In the UK the biggest abstracters of electricity are cannabis farms, which need it for heat and light indoors. Here where it’s legal to grow, the bitcoin miners come top of the electricity theft league.

When I learnt to dive on Koh Samui twenty years ago in a British staffed school we started with three days pool and classroom training, including swimming tests. If standards are not maintained, people die. Safety of students and their vessels are vital. But too often money is seen as the most important factor, not reputation.

To tackle corruption, along with dismissing the guilty, there must be an increase in salaries for police officers to. remove the temptation and excuse for corruption. This was done in Singapore and Hong Kong, with the latter having the ICAC staffed by British officers to investigate corrupt staff. RTP is massively over staffed they can afford to lose a few corrupt ones. Once the police force is reformed, they can tackle corruption in other bodies like the armed forces and Government , that must also have their salaries increased. The extra money needed can come from less corrupt and more efficient tax collection, including a raised VAT rate as consumption taxes are most easily collected. This demands a complete change in culture and mindset from the population that may take generations to happen, and a progressive Government who want to change the status quo. Unfortunately the Establishment are doing all they can to prevent this and retain the current position.

The only pressure the separatists can apply is through violence. Same as happened in Northern Ireland. The only solution is to resume talks and give way to certain of the demands, perhaps for a degree of self-government or allying with Malaysia, again as happened with Blair’s government. The undoubted assets and potential of the three Southern provinces are being wasted with this endless cycle of violence.

Land acquisition delays almost every rail project in Thailand (as well as in some other countries). The Government need to get better at planning and preparation before announcing projects and appointing Contractors. The other big delays usually centre around utilities diversion.

Rather than the Government targeting ten year old cars for scrappage to stimulate new car sales they should scrap all the old and dangerous buses and coaches with their ancient chassis clothed in new panels and their CNG cylinders waiting to turn them into fireballs.

Whilst the Chinese may have declared Taiwan a province it is still self-governing as an independent country they have not “taken it over”. Better to look at what happened in Hong Kong to see how China behaves.

Forcing consumers back onto cancer-causing, but Government-revenue generating, cigarettes.

Stopping midway in a descent for a couple of minutes allows the brakes to cool and reduce fading. It also slows the descent to avoid loss of control on curves.