richard_smith237

Exactly.... anything else other than applying the brakes... flashing lights, hit the horn, accelerate... anything to force the other party to ‘get out of my way’.... of course when the other party doesn’t ‘get out of their way’ there is an impact...... There is no such thing as defensive driving here... So many actions would and could be avoided if the mentality was to slow down and take caution instead of assert ones road presence....

An apologist. A realist. We all agree that attitudes towards road safety here are atrocious and something needs to be done, including a complete cultural shift. But, recognising that the roads are dangerous and that we should be extra cautious is by no means being a Thai apologist - no one is making excuses for people who drive like many people do in Thailand and the general road attitudes, we (in this case bristolgeof) is / are pointing out an accurate facet of Thailand road use... The bigger vehicles have little respect for the smaller... and cyclists are so far down on the list of ‘respect’ it's as if they are unnoticeable.

Wow... This story is extreme..... It must have taken huge resolve not to get off your bike and smash in her car.... I don’t advocate a violent and escalating response... but then sometimes it just seems justifiable, this seems like one of those examples. ------- I recall riding on a fairly busy road in Bangkok (1 lane in each direction) - I’d passed a Mazda then pulled in-front of it, behind the car in front. There a lot of space (about 50m). For some reason the Mazda didn’t like this hit his horn and accelerated up to my rear... So I slowed... as the traffic stopped in front, so did I, the Mazda stopped about 30cm from my rear-tire. I got off my bike, went to the window of the Mazda, knocked on the window... I was furious, but asked him if he was trying to run me over. I’ve never seen someone so apologetic... The Mazda driver (had that pale complexion, neat mummys, boy look... absolutely cr@pped himself.... I’ve no idea why he did what he did - some people are just utter idiots. In hindsight, I was an utter idiot - Its impossible to know who we are dealing with in that situation. These two examples highlight the ‘entitlement’ some clearly have when on the roads... me first, don’t get in my way, I will not yield... ever notice when crossing a road or pulling out of a junction, people flash their lights and accelerate.... It seems drivers here will do almost anything not to have to ‘brake’, which seems to be a loss of face - the consequences are so frequently deadly. Condolences to the Canadian... I wonder if his wife simply cycled out in front of the truck or as I suspect, the truck simply refused to brake, hit the horn and when he realised it was too late it was too late.

Width is not a major issue... The adventure style bikes usually have wider bars, nearly all other bikes are are the same width (or very close to scooters). BMW G310GS – 34.7” Honda CB500F – 30.625” Kawazaki Ninja 650 – 28” Suzuki VStrom – 30” Honda PCX – 29” Yamaha Aerox – 27.5” I rode a BMW around Bangkok (ADV) even in gridlock traffic the width didn’t catch me out much. There were a couple of occasions where I was forced to stop due to width, but most of the time when it was that ‘tight’ bikes in front had already stopped. The main issues with that commit are: - Concentration for that length of time is in the heat is quite an ask. - Elevated risk of mistake and accident when someone does something stupid and concentration has drifted. - Weather (we’re in the tropics, it rains regularly). - Heat - You’d have to gear up (jacket / pants / boots etc) its just too hot as soon as you enter BKK traffic. - Lots of trucks on that road (elevated brake failure / lap-nai / flookwittery risk). - Night riding - visibility, tireless, other drivers poor eyesight. Up to Halfway from Hua Hin is fine. But from 1 hr outside BKK into BKK is no, it just gets too busy with drivers ‘hustling’ to get past the car in front.

This is the simple solution to a lot of things - Go with one official name. It seems strange that she won’t want to change her Thai maiden surname to her married surname - it is a bit of leg work and takes a couple of days (land office, credit cards, passport etc)... but the alternative is ‘kicking the can down the road’ and problems could arise in the future if holding two separate names. But... I guess thats their choice. As another poster has written - IF the Ops wife want to drive with Australian Driving Licences accompanied with an IDP issued in Australia then her IDP will match the name on her Australian Driving Licence - that should be sufficient. Does the Ops wife also have Australian ID (i.e. an Australian Passport) which she used as ID to obtain her Australian DL with her married surname ???....

Not again.... The headline just about sums up the continued exasperation with the sheer utter absence of a ‘give a f@%k culture here’.... When companies are protected by defamation laws, when there is no accountability there is of course no responsibility. One of the most frustrating issues in Thailand is safety.... When ever something is pointed out the ‘foreigner’ is accused of ‘thinking too much’ and / or told... this is the 'Thai-way’ which is ultimately extremely annoying when its easy to see how someone could be hurt yet its just pushed away in a dismissive manner.... There is no incentive for anyone to do things properly.... no one in any position of accountability cares for the simple reason they are not forced to be accountable. ONLY when companies are sued for significant compensation will these issue start to get resolved. I don’t like a culture which likes to file lawsuits at the drop of a hat, but this is the only way I can see improvement because there is no way to generate a culture where people and business genuinely care, so they have to be forced to care....

I’m not so sure... Engine at the front of the truck like a counter weight. If less than half of the concrete poles sticking out of the truck they are balanced. Additionally, if the poles were resting on the roof end of the flatbed the poles at the rear end would be lower down... (closer to car bumper level). It seems the poles were at car windscreen height, lay flat as they pierced both front and rear windscreens. Obviously we can’t be sure... but looking at the photo’s thats what I interpret as having happened. --------- Regardless of how the load was carried... its seems the dear old wife drove straight into the back of the truck.

I wouldn’t exactly consider a dumb law introduced by a military junta as ‘culture’.. So... exactly which part of Thailands laws would you classify as ‘culture’ ?? If people (Thai or Foreign) didn’t voice their opinions we’d be left with a lot more stupid stuff around us... You also seem to think that having a negative opinion means making no effort to understand and learn different cultures and backgrounds... thats just a bit dumb.

This topic has come up numerous times.... with the usual rules. - Cannot drive with red plates after 6pm - Cannot drive out of province To my knowledge there is nothing written and these are not actual rules. That said, some BiB ‘believe them to be rules’ but all that has happened here is peer-to-peer transference as the police are hardly well trained, they just pick things up from their senior officers. Thus: IF (in the very rare event) someone driving on red plates is stopped, outside of province or at night there is no rule being broken. The only regulation is that the Brown-Book is completed with origin and destination and todays date. Of course, no one does that. What are the origins of the red plates ??? they are simple dealership plates. The reason we see them on the road is that the DLT is simply too slow to issue registers plates, so driving on red plates has become the norm.

Looks to me as though the concrete posts were sticking out the back of the truck and the diver simply drove into the truck at a fair lick of speed while the truck was going fairly slowly.... I’m surprised the now fashionable ‘lap-nai’ was not mentioned....

Would it have made any difference to someone not looking where they are going and driving straight into the back of a loaded truck ????

You don’t have OCD, you are just organized. If you have to kick the wall 3x and tap your toes 6x before leaving your house… you have OCD.,

If not vaccinated You need a negative PCR test cert. If you don’t have that you will (or may) be asked to take a test on arrival. It’s not quite clear if it’s all people without a PCR test cert or just random. Its not clear if you have to pay for that or not. Also, Airlines may have their own requirements.

You are supposed to watch a video. Because of Covid you have to watch the vid online.

The Thai Motorcycle & Car Licenses cannot be combined. Regarding motorcycle license. The staff at the DLT do not understand the Class & endorsements… Thus, if they see the ‘outline’ of a scooter on your endorsements (reverse side on Uk license) they give you a full motorcycle license !!!

Why would you need to.....most include accident and travel insurance in the same policy anyhow. You do use travel insurance.....???? Is it a ‘Covid only’ policy ? Or, now that it’s not going to be a requirement is he planning to visit without any medical insurance at all ? The latter being the source of many issues people enforceably face.

Nothing happens... I’ve had numerous replete cars, driven at night (in BKK) and outside the province (again at night to restaurants etc)... Only once (about 20 years ago) a GF got stopped in her car at the toll-booth (in Bangkok), she simply said she’d been working and was going home (it was about 9pm). .... the red plate thing... I wouldn’t give it a second thought. As far as getting your white plate - you can do it yourself at the DLT. The online DLT registration like all official Thai apps seems not to work (been trying to get a bike registered recently).

A thread highlighting the latest updates which was running before the news story was published in Aseannow was closed down based on not wanting to have duplicate threads running yet there seems to be no issue with duplicate news stories running !!!

Always baby steps.... but there really aren’t that many steps left to take. This could have happened back in April.... At least Thailand is moving in the right direction which sends out the message to tourists who were sitting on the fence that they can go ahead. Combined with 45 day Visa on entry (should really be 90) and temporarily no need for *TM6 at Immigration (reducing Immigration queues), things are looking better for tourists. Now Thailand only has to deal with its ‘insurance’ issues... i.e. insist all arrivals have insurance, or included an insurance in the price of the ticket, or just stop complaining about it and agree to treat emergency cases on Thailands national health system with the understanding that the additional medical costs incurred by tourists are a tiny **percentage (0.03%) of the income tourists bring to the country... *It seems immigration have shunted the TM6 responsibility to the airlines who submit in bulk (if I’m not mistaken), this seems like it could be the first ‘baby-step’ towards getting rid of those unnecessary pieces of paper. ** In 2019 it was reported that there was THB700 Million in unpaid medical bills from tourists. In the same year it was reported that revenue from Tourism was US$62 Billion (THB 2.165 Trillion) Which begs the question: Does Thailand really need to be getting upset about 0.03% cost of its tourism revenue to the medical industry ????

Fair enough - I live in BKK and never really noticed the ‘seasons’... But everyone I know travels here in the Summer holidays (longer School break) etc... This lifting of the Thailand pass is definitely a positive for those planning ’their break’ later on in the year as well as regional weekend breaks etc...

?? You would cancel a holiday just because of an online (Thailand Pass) application which takes 10 mins to submit.... (if it comes back)... erm... bit of an over-reaction don’t you think ???..... while the Thailand Pass is now redundant, its hardly a major effort, unless of course it is the insurance cover which you are unable to secure (but even that is easy to get hold of and costs 650 baht).

No more mask wearing outdoors from 1st July.... Which means still have to wear masks indoors at airport etc... but at least the new regs are approaching something like common sense. No more Thailand Pass from 1st July...

Your link doesn't say that, talks about 1 June old news The news is real and up to date... ... the link was miss posted (I edited and put in the correct link already).

Indeed.... Sadly for Thailand most of potential European sumo holiday makers have already booked up their Summer Holiday breaks and perhaps made nay-decision based on the Thailand Pass requirements. I hope Thailand can now put this to bed and keep from the negative publicity of arresting tourists for smoking dope after so much fan-fare and announcements of legalising it.... Its time the tourism industry in Thailand had a good break and all those small businesses can recover...

While ‘Sandboxing’ last year I enquired and was quoted prices from 500 to 800 baht per day for a little thing.... I didn’t look too deeply into it (hired a scooter instead)... I’m not sure of the level of insurance cover etc. There are plenty of websites which offer Car Hire in Phuket.. Also take a look on FaceBook market place.