richard_smith237

In this situation, you would of course be ‘dead-right’.... I don’t think how that point could be made any clearer !!!....

So, its ok to walk out into traffic and expect or trust that the oncoming vehicle has 1) seen you and 2) will stop for you ???? A rigid, naive and wholly dangerous view point, one which ignores the practical realties of life. You can’t argue your ‘laws’ from a hospital bed or the morgue.

Of course sympathy for the old Thai woman. But, at least an innocent neighbours Child wasn’t attacked etc.... The owners of this dog didn’t train the dog properly, most likely though innocent ignorance of the dogs needs. Everyone knows these breeds can be dangerous, I can understand those who express a certain lack of sympathy towards those attacked by their own pet which they failed to train well enough. This is why these animals should be licensed and the owners trained and evaluated before they can have a licence to own such an animal.... (and I know, this is Thailand and unlikely to happen, but that should be the case).

2.5 hrs is decent enough... for those without their own transport. But for those of us in Bangkok with our own transport.... ‘Home to Hotel’ is usually 2.5 hours. So, there is no need to taxi it from home to station, wait for train, 2.5 hrs to HH, then taxi it to the hotel... then taxi’ it around HH (or renting a car or scooter)... That said: If travelling into Bangkok from HH, the 2.5 hr journey could make things simpler. Sit back on the train and enjoy the journey with a cold one ( I know, I know... read the other ‘booze on train thread ).... Arrive in BKK, don’t worry about parking, driving etc.... public transport and Grab is easy enough (for the most part - if taxi’s don’t keep rejecting you !).

Pisanu Suvanajata, Thai Ambassador to the United Kingdom was at the funeral. Funeral attendance was by invite only.... So it's not as if Prawit (or ‘someone' else) could just turn up, that said, diplomatic channels could have highlighted intent.

Sorry, no first hand experience of either of these places or the cost. But I do know a friend that went to SafeHavens in Bangkok (no longer exists) cost 120,000 baht for 1 month with a further month as ‘day-rehab’ (8am-5pm) https://siamrehab.com https://www.hope-rehab-center-thailand.com

IF you’re going to step out into a road without paying full attention, it doesn’t really matter what speed the traffic is doing if you get hit.... A lack of self preservation cannot be blamed on the driver. In such events there is dual complicity. The idea that a pedestrian can simply walk out into the road and all responsibility be placed on the driver is flawed. This is not the case on the UK’s motorways and dual carriage was. But it is in the towns and cities. One other facet of this issue not yet discussed is the road design.... A Fast 6 lane highway passing through an area where pedestrians are likely - Thailands roads are terribly designed from a safety perspective - this is the outcome. Thus: contributing factos: - Speeding car - Poor road design (fast road through area with shop houses and perhaps bars / restaurants) - Inattentive (intoxicated?) pedestrian - No pedestrian bridge nearby ???

I think his comments are fair.... accusing Spark of victim blaming is unfair, the victim was clearly responsible for stepping out in front of an oncoming car. The deceased is surely to blame for his part in his demise - he crossed a major road in front of an on coming car because he wasn’t paying full attention. He may not have been paying full attention due to being intoxicated (possibly, but looks likely from the vid). The Car was also approaching very quickly, far more quickly than the other traffic. The field of view in the video is too small to see if the car showed any signs of braking or not, the car was going too fast, its impossible to see if the ‘front dipped etc’ due to breaking etc. Its possible the car driver saw the guy waiting in the middle of the road to pass... as is very normal in Thailand, drivers will take almost any other form of action before applying the brakes, drivers just do not want to brake until absolutely forced to... So, its entirely feasible that the car drive saw the man in the central lane waiting to cross and instead of stopping, he counted on and never expected the pedestrian to step out in-front of him by which time it was tragically too late. The video shows the car was travelling a lot faster than all the other vehicles. The video shows the pedestrian appears intoxicated. The video shows the pedestrian crossing the road, looking once, waiting for a passing vehicle, then stepping walking across the middle and right most lane without looking again. As Khun LA wrote - a perfect storm: Speeding car, inattentive pedestrian. An fully avoidable accident IF the pedestrian was paying full attention. But, if the car was travelling at 50kmh (within a speed limit etc) would the pedestrian still have stepped out in front of it and would the driver be able to stop in time ???

No... I don’t see that the standard here (on this forum) is to ‘judge Thai’s without evidence and excuse foreigners without any evidence’.... there are ‘some’ posters who are like that, but the vast majority are not and base their comments on experience and individual merit of the situation... We can of course only highlight the ‘imbalanced comments’ to support our confirmation bias which is perhaps how you have drawn your opinion that is the ’standard to judge Thai’s and excuse foreigners’ which is certainly not the case... on this forum foreigners be damned as much as Thai’s - it just depends on the individual event. As we can see here in this thread alone - there is a lot of attention being placed on the ‘level of attention the Swedish guy applied when crossing a major road’....

I'm not sure that walking across the road ‘expecting that any approaching driver would be able to see them’ is an intelligent approach to crossing the road in any country.... especially Thailand. While in Western countries there are laws and regulations protecting the pedestrian... Being ‘dead-right’ means nothing to your grieving family..... Look, look, look again, don’t take chances and never assume you’ve been seen - these are the very basics we’ve all been taught, no ?

What is 'loose face'? Its when the face falls off.... they put another one on, but don’t attach it properly because they know its only a matter of time before they lose that one too !!!!

The Thai forums such as Panthip are full of this stuff.... Many people seem to think its just foreigners on forums such as this who make critical observations of ‘some’ things Thai... then people go online to accuse said ‘poster’ of being a Thai-basher etc while being completely unaware of how much the Thai’s are ‘bashing’ the issue and often ‘bashing’ the mentality of ‘some’ of their countrymen, just as we do in the west... (far more similarities between us than differences !).... This ‘jumbled letters things' is one of those ‘cute but a little embarrassing’ ones... Similar to ‘<deleted> Curry’ in a restaurant menu.. cute... but it underlines a lack of attention to detail. When observed at higher levels we see this same lack of detail impacting people negatively, sometimes dangerously, as can be observed in the ‘electrics’ in Thailand etc.... I recall a Thai IT preparing a computer for me, he’d installed Windows.... When I received the computer the Windows was installed in Thai.... (this was working for an international company).

Geeze, as soon as there’s a ‘discussion’ there is always someone complaining that a discussion is being held...

You hit a bin-lorry ??? I get your point... cars are designed to crush and cushion the impact etc... all part of the NCAP / ACAP testing and rating etc.... But, the video also highlights the car was ‘gunning it’.... From the video it ‘could be’ established within a fair range what speed the car is calculated to be travelling at. As you mentioned... thats normal for 100kmh... but thats not a 100kmh road. Sadly, the Swede also appears complicit in his own demise with his apparent drunken state and apparent lack of self-preservation when crossing the road.

RiP to the Swede. This appears to be the tragic result of a combination of paying little attention while crossing a major road and speeding of the oncoming vehicle.

This is why.... what speed generates this damage when hitting a pedestrian ? Of course, the Swedish guy appears intoxicated and crosses the road without a great deal of concern for his surroundings.... he looked how many times, once ? Then ‘ambled across the road’ without any great care or sense of self preservation. But, the oncoming car came fast.. when the Swede looked, the approaching car would have been much further away and if he was drunk, it would have been difficult for the Swede to judge the oncoming speed.... The video and the damage incurred to the car appears quite damning with regards to the car speeding. Additionally... your ‘attempted cynical irony' is utterly flawed... we only have to go back a few weeks to witness the scorn directed towards an Aus guy in Songkhla who pulled out in front of two girls on a motorcycle killing them... and another story of a Brit pensioner, allegedly drunk, reversing into a Thai man crushing him to death....

Are there ever any dogs which we usually see on dangerous dogs list in countries such as the UK ever called by names which are not ‘kind of violent’... i.e. Tyson, Ripper, Blaze etc... does anyone name their Pit-Bull, Doberman or Rottweiler, Sandy, Buddy, Patch ???? Of course, these dogs when extremely well trained are awesome, I’ve no doubt we’ll hear from such responsible owners soon - however, there are always owners who are completely irresponsible. Ultimately, such dogs are highly dangerous, as such, any owner of a dog considered a ‘dangerous breed’ really should have a license to own such an animal. To obtain such a licence they’d need to undergo training of how to look after and train such an animal and prove that they can secure the animal and house it properly when both present and out, they also need to prove they can afford to look after it properly and have the time to care for it properly. I know thats a ridiculously tall ask for a country which doesn’t even enforce helmet laws correctly - nevertheless this is where we should be. Owners really need to be fully responsible for their pets. All pets should have a collar. IF that dog gets out (I know, not this story), the owner is fined. If that pet bites or hurts someone else, the owner is fined at a commensurate level. IF dogs on the street do not have a collar, they should be removed (debate ongoing in another thread).. No doubt someone like Bill Smart will come along to tell us how humans made this dog problem, how its in a book he wrote that humans are the scourge of the planet and if there were no humans we wouldn’t have these issues....

They work ‘similarly’ to a credit card, but not quite the same. There are online transactions for which only a credit-card will work (*a couple of examples below) This is a ’secured credit card’ and is the most common way for foreigners to get credit card in Thailand. People will argue the semantics of this not being a credit card as it relies on a security-deposit of your own money, they are theoretically correct, however the transactions are digitally recognised as ‘credit-card’ transactions - thus, its still a credit card from the purposes of getting access to transactions where a debit-card may not work. -------- *In the past, when making these transactions, for example with *Emirates Airlines repeated attempts with a Debit Card return a transaction failure. First attempt with a credit-card returned a transaction success. This was the case at least up until a couple of years ago (when attempting to make a transaction with UK, Thai and UAE Debit Cards). I’m not sure if this Credit / Debit card difference has been ironed out more recently - I’m sure there will be posters who counter my comment with “I’ve never noticed the difference”... “I’ve used a debit card with Emirates etc”.... thats fair enough - I’m stating my experience here, using cards for various transaction in many countries, I’ve found Credit Cards to be more reliably accepted than debit cards. (Qatar is a perfect example of this - there is even a law which prevents online transactions with Debit-Cards for things like UBER and Deliveroo etc - not fully Thailand related, but nonetheless, there are some differences with some vendors). Thus: having a credit card removes a disadvantage in certain situations. i.e. trying to change a flight at last minute etc (my example with emirates above - did not accept Debit card - had to use credit card).

I'm not sure that would get the bicycle up to ‘traffic speed’ on the frontage roads... They go at about 50-80km in many areas. The getting something fabricated to fit the seat-stem is perhaps one of the best ideas I’ve seen so far, or the side-rack.

I found a 150cc Honda ADV ok in Phuket (rented while sandboxing there for 2 weeks), but I often found I needed a little more grunt on the hills and getting up to traffic speed on some of the faster roads.... thats just personal riding taste though... a 200cc + is ideal. IMO - thats the most dangerous place to be... Each to their own of course, but that inside shoulder is often gritty, has other vehicles / bikes going the wrong way, has things parked in it, has dogs running along it, has things pulling out without looking... and if I’m going slower than the traffic passing me I’m placed in a very precarious position. IMO - its better to drive with the traffic than get squeezed to the site... Hence why I’d want something that can comfortably sit in the main lanes, but is also light enough to just be a normal scooter. That Kymco 300 looks ideal... along with the Xmax 300 and ADV 350... but as you mentioned, it is a fairly big jump in price from +/- 90,000 baht up to 190,000 baht.... .... and the Vespa is 230,000 baht but you’re paying more for the brand (as I mentioned earlier candles and sock guys won’t get that part).

Do you have an E-ticket ???? A Thai Airways ticket will start with 217-(then 10 numbers) I don’t want to panic you, but you haven’t seen an E-ticket something is amiss.

What Airline ? ‘ten digit number’ ??? - An E-ticket is 13 digits (3 digits a dash, then 10 digits) You should also have an air-line booking Reference code (usually 6 digits numbers and letters such as TX45HNP *example only) With your e-ticket and surname you should be able to login to your Airline Webpage and see your confirmation. Or... With airline Booking Ref and surname you should be able to login to your Airline Webpage and see your confirmation. (Note: Airline booking reference is not to be mistaken with Opodo booking Ref).

Do you mean E-Ticket ???? or Boarding Pass ?? You can’t get a boarding pass until you’ve checked in for your flight. With most airlines you can check in on line (usually from 72 or 48 hrs before the flight). With some (*usually budget airlines) you have to check-in online. With ALL airlines you can check in at the airport and get your boarding pass (although some budget carriers may charge extra for this i.e. Ryan Air). Which Airline is it ? / When is the flight ??? - Give ppl the info so they can help you ! IF you have an e-ticket then there is no need to deal with Opodo... Go straight the carriers web-page and check-in online (but remember, most will only allow you to check-in online up to 72 hrs or 48 hrs before the flight).

There are actually a few options out there... My mate in Bali had a Scooter with a surfboard rack... So an option like that would work. (don’t fancy taking a right hander at any decent speed though !)

I forgot all about the most obvious solution. ???? Not sure how I could setup a rack on that though and I hear they're pretty hard to drive. Something covered maybe be nice also. Would you need a rack ?? just sling the bike in it and bungee it down. OR, have a ‘fitting welded’ so you can fit your front forks on to it... I guess there are many potential variables once you get down to it. Road worthiness is another issue, or rather ‘road legality’... as you mentioned, I wouldn’t fancy riding one either to be honest... But, if pottering along at 50kmh, then it can’t be too dangerous.