BangkokReady

The previous governments didn't either. Neither will the next one.

Thai people don't care about road safety. No seatbelts, no helmets, kids riding loose in the back of a pick-up truck. Many Thais even actively enjoy driving/riding dangerously. Nothing. What could they do? Nothing. How? How? The police can't be everywhere all at once. Public transportation is already very affordable. It's simply more convenient to have your own.

As harmful as social media is, it's actually one of the few things that seems to be making a difference in Thai society. Unfortunately, we have the other side of it in Western countries, where it isn't the little guy standing up against the big guy anymore.

I think you're misunderstanding me. Thai people generally don't want the police to properly enforce the law. That is my point. They enjoy not really having to follow the laws themselves and, particularly when it comes to road laws, they don't really want the police to do much. If "Western style" law enforcement magically appeared in Thailand overnight, the general public would be horrified, even though it would, eventually, greatly reduce deaths and injuries on the roads and make them function a lot smoother. If laws were suddenly properly enforced on the roads in Thailand, millions of Thais would suddenly find themselves unable to use a motor vehicle for at least a year as they are immediately arrested and charged for a variety of traffic offences, probably on the first day. This would lead to a lot of job losses and the economy would likely suffer drastically. Thailand has a culture of a wai, a fruit basket and a payment to the family of the victim solving most legal issues. When the police get tough on anything road related, people often respond that they are being too harsh. When a police officer catches four children riding on one motorbike without helmets and makes them do a few jumping jacks and sends them on their way, back on the bike, he is applauded. There needs to be a cultural shift before proper law enforcement can begin.

There'll be no law enforcement until Thai society wants it.

Who wants to be the first person to not benefit, only claim base salary, have to pay full price, pay full tax, follow the procedure fully, wait the normal wait time, etc.?

Yes, the way "face-saving" culture works, Thais generally don't ask questions in the first place, then once they realise someone is making an excuse or was embarrassed by the subject, they immediately drop the subject, making some of of excuse like it was a misunderstanding or they were only joking. (You can actually sometimes experience this in real time when you're talking with a Thai and they realise that a question has made you feel awkward.) I think as well as not causing someone else to lose face, there's a kind of self-preservation thing where they don't want to make someone mad as there might be consequences. And, of course, they would hope that they would be afforded the same level of face-saving should they be the focus of the conversation. You can't really blame them for it, it's the culture they were raised in. Yes, I think everyone knows about it. It's similar to the face-saving thing. Everyone just knows to not mention it. They're senior staff, and the junior staff are probably doing corrupt things of their own also. It's the kind of thing where no one is going to complain as they might hope to end up in that position in the future. They're both deeply ingrained cultural behaviours and there's clearly a reciprocal self-interest element.

Sometimes people have different feelings about certain nationalities or races and this affects how they treat them, regardless of what the actual individual is like as a person.

This only proves that at some point this sign was printed and it was subsequently displayed in this window.

It would probably be "Thais Rolling In Dough As Ten New Bakery Shops Open!".

Is this actually real, or is it photoshopped? If it's real, I can't imagine why anyone goes on these things, unless they didn't realise how busy it was.

Given that pretty much every organisation/industry has this problem in Thailand, it's really more of the local culture being the root cause.

Pretty good, on top of the amount of downtime/paid holiday teachers get, the regular incremental pay rises, medical coverage, financial benefits, and the pension they get at a fairly young age.

And it's the people not caring that causes the law not to care...

A top to bottom fundamental change within Thai society and culture, which isn't going to happen any time soon.

Shouldn't be too hard to check some CCTV and find out which officer has been borrowing the truck, if they wanted to look into it.

Pay it forward?

Could you imagine if malls were held accountable? There seem to be rats everywhere and I can't imagine how much would need to be changed to keep them out. I don't think many places could still trade, especially the outdoor kind.

Great bit of pointing by the ladyboy. Clearly a good sport.

You wouldn't be bothered if someone stole £260 from you and wouldn't pursue it further?

Possibly people were slightly confused by the idea of lightning starting fires during heavy rain storms, when everything is extremely wet. I'm not denying it could happen, it just seems a little unlikely or unusual. Is it electrical fires in buildings? (It also could have been the three ideas kind of smushed into one paragraph.)

Buddhism "Thai style".

The behaviour of many Thais who regularly make the news would suggest this is untrue. Some Thais talk about military conscription like some sort of sexual or physical abuse that they suffered which left them permanently traumatised.

It seems that you're fighting a losing battle here. People don't even appear to be fully reading what you're posting.

It's not all Brits, of course. But there is a sizeable demographic of young British men who like to go out and get wa*kered then re-enact Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Perhaps they share some DNA with the Australians? There were a few sent over there at some point.