richard_smith237

Some people want their hand-held and worry the process is convoluted and unnavigable for a non-Thai speaking foreigner.... Its not as if they are turning up for a driving licence and get sent for a colonoscopy !!!.... there’s not a lot that can go wrong, but they worry anyway. Others may be on a fine time-line and hope that the agents can help them jump the queues etc, which is possible.

At that cost its surely worth doing it yourself.... 6-6.5k per licence is a great little earner for someone !

Because that's what I've read everywhere and even been told on this forum. Why would there not be an application form to fill in? Why would there have to be an application form to fill in ??? I’ve renewed my licence a handful of times and obviously applied from new the first time - there was never a form involved. Anyway, forget the idea of filling in a form before you go there... No form is needed at all. That’s at DLT Area 3 in Bangkok, perhaps its different in other provinces with each individual office having different rules / process.

Your home country ?.... If its the UK you may get away with it if you have a driving licence with the motorcycle endorsements AM and A....

A valid point.... I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve seen road workers on the right handside of a three lane city street (i.e. Sukhumvit, Rama IV, Petchaburi Rd etc)... with their back to traffic oblivious or careless of approaching traffic which has to brake or swerve..... Someone on their phone and thats it... Frankly I’m surprised we do not read of more injuries to road workers. Conversely, in the UK the road itself is closed for weeks with KM’s of cones while two days work is carried out.

Seems you are on the wrong web-page... This is a discussion forum. IF you want the news, go to https://www.nationthailand.com There was a video.... Do you lack critical ability to draw an opinion ?

The same happens with the Police Check-points.... Sometimes just around the corner or over the blind brown of a hill... Any queueing traffic is at serious risk of getting ‘rear-ended’.... There is very clearly a complete and total absence of consequence here... people just do what they want without any thought to the danger or risk they may place themselves or others at.... thinking from the perspective of someone else is simply not a concept. In this case - Did the painter think... 'I’m at danger here ?’.... It must have crossed their mind because there was the guy ‘watching out’... So did the guy watching out, think.... ‘IF I go to the bathroom, I’ll leave the painter alone and he’ll be in danger?’..... of course not... neither of the workers thought - but this is Thailand and this is where Thailand fails. Workers all over the world tend to ignore their own safety, it is down to the supervisors and management to regulate and enforce a safety culture - this happens far less in Thailand than our home countries regardless of how many ’safety first’ signs we see around... That said: The driver of the car is still 100% at fault... How can she not see a person in the middle of her path ?.... it could have been a child.

Can’t make this s#i£ up..... as if its bad enough one incident is occurring everyone has be on extreme alert for other lunatics who should know better... ... this could have been so much worse... I wonder how many lives are taken each year by these lunatic racing in pickups with lights to the scene of an accident.

So very tragic - died saving his wife. A horrific, and yes, avoidable incident - what happened to going to a disused car-park ? I know I know... 20/20 hindsight, monday morning quarterbacking etc... but really... she couldn’t drive so the husband gets her to blackout infront of a khlong ? - So many people around the world and here in Thailand seem not to carry any concept of consequence.

Not quite... in ‘any civilised country there should not be someone in the road’..... this was not a main road, it was an entrance way where pedestrians can be expected.... it could have been a child walking across.... I do agree that there should have been warning signs etc... for the safety of the worker - so there was a massive failing at that aspect, but, this is also Thailand, safety is a low priority in the minds of many. The lady still managed to drive into and over a person in broad daylight - there really is no one else to blame but her.... the deceased contributed to his own demise by placing himself ‘in the line of fire’, however, the lady is still fully at fault for not seeing him and stopping.

The primary one being not looking where she was going !!! There are no mitigating circumstances... Not expecting someone to be in an entrance way is not a sufficient excuse.... its not as if the deceased was sat down in the middle of the motorway.

So your take-away hypothesis is that most Wealthy people are unintelligent, ergo most poor people are intelligent... ??? With logic such as that are you enjoying driving around in your Bentley ???

Exactly - getting a Thai DL is one of the much easier things to do within Thai bureaucracy. BUT... IF an agent can ‘queue jump’ and get someone on a fine time line in ahead of the curve and avoid on the day queueing then I can understand someone making that choice - they still need to be present though the process and take the ‘in-room tests’ and watch the video etc...

Not that I’m aware of at all.... Been here about 25 years... Married for 14... Wife (Thai) has never sent or received a Wedding card... I don’t recall any cards being sent full stop, not even commiseration on funerals etc.... The only thing ‘close’ are wedding invitation cards... That said, mileage may vary... things may vary across the country, even within Bangkok. As jwest10 mentioned.... Wife gets a plenty of FaceBook messages when she posts the yearly wedding anniversary announcement... but thats about it.

This implies that another resident can simply levy an accusation without proof and a fine will be issued... Is this what happened?

As pointed out by Crossy without SHOUTING 1.5 hours before you...

A number of issues here... The painters lack of regard for his own safety. The ‘watchman’ lack of regard for the safety of someone else. A driver who should not have been driving. Not to remove any blame from the driver, she is clearly 100% at fault here for hitting a stationary ‘pedestrian’ - I can’t think of any mitigating circumstance.... But, many people in this world are completely unaware of the risks they places themselves in - it is a daily occurrence here were I see someone ‘dangerously in the line of fire’.... ----------- I recall driving late at night, turning into a condo building, the entrance was very poorly lit. I saw a shadow and stopped, not sure what it was. It was a guy sat on the floor in the middle of the entrance. Very odd behaviour, but I so very nearly hit him and my headlights didn't catching him early one because I was turning. I actually consider myself lucky I didn't hit him, but also consider if I couldn’t see him, I should never have been driving. but... this incident was in broad daylight - The lady needs to have her eyes tested (thats a serious rather than a facetious comment).

And a blind driver who clearly should never have been behind the wheel of a vehicle.

Not a stupid question - The UK has such a system when you can ‘notify the authorities that your car is off the road and avoid paying road tax’... I don’t think such a system is available in Thailand - If you don’t pay tax for a year or two its simply back-charged, thats all. That said - the cost of road tax in Thailand is negligible - so its not really worth trying to avoid.

In a city where the police are so slow to respond that a sense of entitlement creeps into to those abusing such spaces it going to take a whole shift in the mindset of everyone concerned. A cultural shift is require on all levels of society - Thailand as a nation is too immature for that. The first thing that needs to improve is the ‘circle of influence’.... i.e. many / most people here are conscious of their circle of influence in the following order. 1) Those immediate too them (family / closest friends) - they consider impact on these people. 2) Those in the second circle (work colleagues / other friends) - the consider impact on these people sometimes. 3) Everyone else - there is rarely any thought or consideration outside of their direct two circles of influence. Obviously it's difficult to generalise, but when generalising this is what I see. For anyone outside of the 1 and 2 circles the attitude is simply ’so what’... there is no concept of the ‘greater good of society’ there is no thought towards consequence.... The benefits of this is that people don’t go around getting upset at others because they just don’t care. What we like about Thai culture and society also is the reason for its problems. Ask people to care greatly about society and we end up with greater social responsibility and also people getting more stressed, more readily upset with each other and Thailand loses some of its charm. Its a double edged sword and a balance which is difficult to achieve....

I've not suggested it would. However, IF he is only charged with drink driving and a good lawyer picks up on any minor technicality to throw out the validity of such test then without other charges there is no case against a reckless driver...

Perhaps... But I doubt he was drinking in his car... The excuse of having ‘some’ empty wine bottles in the car seems plausible... i.e. that the GF of a friend wanted them - fair enough.... But that does not mean he [the Bentley driver] had no part in consuming the wine from said wine bottles... The vast majority of establishments have CCTV... I’m not sure where they were drinking, but if its in a public place (i.e. bar or restaurant) it could be established how much he had to drink.

Is is also being charged with dangerous / reckless driving ?

What makes you think there is some sort of ‘form’ ??? There’s no such thing...

The accident is the result... the proof of dangerous and reckless driving in is the footage from the dash-cam of a following car - that’s damning enough. Well, which was it, 1 or 2 ???... A BAC of 20mg 5 hrs later implies approximately 8 units were consumed.... thats more than one or two glasses of ‘champers’... The real issue here is obviously DUI, but the other major facet which seems to be overlooked is that he was driving like an utter lunatic.