agord

So yet again time for baseless criticism of the driver and an appalling reason given by the police.

THis was a long week-end there are bound to be a lot of minibuses on the road

-Were they in a hurry? Had they encouraged the driver to make up time?Was the vehicle road worthy?Was the surface of the road up yo standard?.. almost certainly not!

Was there an effective barrier? - to this last one , one doesn't even have to look at the scene to say NO!!

I don't think I've seen a single piece of Armco or proper barrier set up anywhere in Thailand - basically if a vehicle leaves the road the only things to stop it are either concrete or trees - neither of which are of the remotes use to an out of control vehicle

Get real man, its the bloody driver.

Ut's sad even frightening to see the lack of understanding by some posters here.It makes you wonder what the accident rate is amongst expats, who clearly know nothing about either drivin or road safety.

expats don't know how to drive? really? Most of us have had to go through proper training to get our license, my wife (Thai) doesn't even have a DL but drives every day. Thai driving is just plain scary! To me it seems like they think they are the ONLY ones on the road, not looking before pulling out, driving either way too fast or way too slow - most can't even keep their cars within the lane I think some think the yellow line is supposed to go in the middle of their cars

are you sure they were even your chains? not some similar chains cut up they were trying to pass off figuring you couldn't tell the difference?

This lady is quite right, its an old scam in Yawarat.. those were not your chains, just very similar to your ones... its a daily occurrence there when Farangs go to sell... You should have called the police right away but no use crying over spilt milk and just go out and enjoy the moneys , come to the Beer Garden , make yourself known and we can all laugh together..!!!! Your round.. Som Nam Naa....

Som nam naa? not sure you know the meaning of that??

It is sad when you have some people who get upset not only at the fact other nations and/or international polls show aspects of Thailand rating well but they also appear angry at people who enjoy and/or view Thailand positively ... not sure how much stock we should put into these kinds of opinions. mie-pen-rie / ja-yen-yen

Oui. Mai Phen Rai et Jai yen yen

This is one of the most disgusting things I have ever heard of. This man is a criminal in the worst sense - death penalty as a minimum!!!

Whats the problem?

He murdered her and left her to rot.

What is a murderer supposed to do?

Does Miss Manners have a recommendation on this one too?

Yes he strangled her, she's dead how is it any more horrific for her? she's not around to know she was left rotting so had he burried her straight away it would have been any less criminal? Criminal in the worst sense I picture Thaksin or Madoff.

For all the would be executioners New Zealand, like ALL civilized countries, does not have the death penalty.

I am not a bleeding heart but if forced to jump to conclusions I would think that this man needs serious psychiatric

treatment. Or at least some serious ENT work to restore his sense of smell!

Obviously sick.

All six replies thus far are negative. What a surprise!

If you all hate this place so much, feel it's such a hellhole that no one should enjoy travelling here... why are you here? Leave the place to those of us who actually enjoy living here.

This year my wife and I have a continuous stream of Australian, Canadian and British friends and family coming through our flat on the way to the beaches and up north. All have loved their time in Thailand (and Bangkok) and many have commented on how it's the best place they've visited.

Perhaps (I know - shocking idea!) this poll is accurate and reflects the true sentiment of tourists visiting Thailand? It would also explain all those 747s departing BKK to Scandinavia every night.

If nothing else, can we at least appreciate that this may bring more tall, attractive Scandinavian beauties to Thailand?

Glad you have enjoyed your first year here. Talk to you again in 5

are you sure they were even your chains? not some similar chains cut up they were trying to pass off figuring you couldn't tell the difference?

Although if the snatch and cut act was committed then that was criminal but there is no way you could get the window price for gold - anywhere.

If you want a fright try selling gold in a western country. 15 - 20% of current gold price if your lucky. Thailand is simply amazing.

Yep it's amazingly shameless and selfish. Sorry to the OP I know how it feels when some low life scum outright rips you off then has the nerve to feed you some bs right to your face knowing you can do nothing about it. Hopefully there's a special place in hell for rats like this.

probably a hired mini bus

driven by one of the tachers

Ever seen a mini bus that seats 32 ?

no but then again I never saw a scooter that seats 4-5 but here they are TIT

Well, I wonder if all the posters that have used the "burndown bangkok" video in their various postings will now recant?

George Orwell 1984;

"To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed....

nonsense

Obviously some important details are being left out of this story. The story states that the women expected to be surrogates and even agreed to the payment. It doesn't sound like they woke up one day and suddenly noticed that their bellies were larger. They didn't come to Thailand to be a waitress and then were held in bondage. So what went sour? Once they were pregnant did they change their mind and decide to keep the baby themselves, or perhaps negotiate a higher price? What caused the girl( to change her mind and reneg on her contract?

It may have changed when their passports were taken away and they were held as slaves...may have had something to do with the change of heart?

Which one you would choose?

1. 10 million suddenly missing baht to your pockets?

2. Do hard work to find out all who were the victims all around Europe?

I think the no.1 is the most obvious option. Work permit violation can be easily solved and the 10 million baht just "disappears". Who actually knows how much money there was and who believes the criminals. Word against word...

1. 10 million baht suddenly missing from your pocket

#2 I won't even attempt to fix for you??

deputy city clerk Pheeraphong Saichua seems like a bright guy Good to see homeless people are having safe sex.

deputy city clerk Pheeraphong Saichua seems like a bright guy Good to see homeless people are having safe sex.

deputy city clerk Pheeraphong Saichua seems like a bright guy Good to see homeless people are having safe sex.

Any follow up on this yet? Anyone charged? Some of these stories just seem to go away.

"written lists of massive telephone numbers"

Just how long were these telephone numbers????????

they were massive 082

"They are also quite narrow and very, very dangerous especially if the weather's bad, or it's foggy."

There are NO dangerous roads in the world- not one.

Its all down to : lack of driver skill, lack of common sense, lack of experience, lack of professional training, lack of pride in driving well, lack of fast good reactions, lack of correct response to a threatening situation.

I would say 99% of all Thai drivers fall into the category of one or all the above.

Note: I am an ex-rally champion and when I went off into the scenery on a forest track on several occasions, I nor anyone else would blame the road or conditions, one would say I was trying too hard, I was not concentrating enough, or just plain old... I am not good enough.

Why don't people recognize the fact its always the drivers fault no matter what the situation.

I stand steadfast on my opinion and challenge anyone to point out any occasion where it was not the drives fault.

I keep reading this here and on other threads. If "99% of all Thai drivers" are so bad, then I assume that despite you being a "rally champion", you have not figured out that there are different rules of the road in Asia than in your western country. The vast majority of Thai drivers are predictable. Western drivers, when presented with a situation they are unfamiliar with here in Asia, sometimes do weird things.

In this case, it's hard not to blame the driver, but I'd like to hear the rest of the facts, especially since I've been on that road.

And if you want another case where it's not the driver's fault:

Bus driver is driving safely. Driver of oncoming vehicle falls asleep and turns into bus's path. Bus driver's first reaction is to swerve to avoid hitting oncoming vehicle with disastrous results. Or should the bus driver have plowed right through the oncoming vehicle.

RIP.

Hard to say how any of us would react in that situation but in hind sight yes plow through the vehicle and kill 1 or 2 instead of going down a 100 m revine and killing/ inuring 30+. Not really that hard of choice when you think about it but understandable the first reaction to avoid the oncoming car if that is indeed what happened?

BKKJames:

Oh and speaking of stats - how many killed in car accidents in the west (USA) last year? Check the USA rates over the last decade - and then come back with ignorant thoughts. All the regulation in the world won't change a thing unfortunately except create a few new industries for those concerned.

In TH, the number was around 11,000 of which motorcycles made up 6,000. Too many - yes but throwing more government controls / laws when the existing one's dont get enforced is pointless.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

:lol: having a laugh? compare US stats with Thailand?? seriously get a grip. Everyone owns a car in the US if not 2. Having served as an officer for the US DOT and a grad from the CHP academy I'm not going to indulge you in a debate in something you know little if anything about. nice try

Yes you're right no point to have any highway patrol officers on the roads, commerical vehicle checkpoints... yeah those things wouldn't make a positive impact. you win

Police suspected that the bus driver lost control because he was not familiar with mountainous road.

Read again... This stupid attitude is exactly the problem !

lets get more farang onto busses

I'm out. I have not been on any kind of bus in over 6 years since mine ran head on into a mountain because the driver fell asleep. Worth mentioning he was the younger of the two drivers they had on the overnight bus and the senior, in very Thai fashion, slept in the back and let the junior drive the whole way (over 10 hours by the time we crashed) they should have switched every 4 at least. Luckily nobody was killed but serious injuries and had the driver not hit the side of the mountain the other side was at least a 100 m drop to the sea. sat on the side of the raod for over 2 hours, 5:00 am with people having broken legs, head injuries etc. before anyone came to pick the injured up. I took some stitches to my eyebrow and my g/f bruised her knee, the old man driver got thrown down the aisle of the bus.

It does not matter whether it was a minibus or a bus......... It was anyway a public transportation vehicle....

RIP to all victims.

I was driving last week end heading North. I was doing 120 - 130 km / h, with a very good and perfectly maintained car. I know that my speed was already over the limit. You can not imagine how many loaded minibus passed me. And how many buses tried to pass, some staying on my side, forcing me to let them go...!!!!!!!! Scary.

These lunatic drivers are definitely not trained for this kind of job, and they do not care about other people lives...

I feel really bad for all those people who have no other choice than using those minibus and buses...

Sorry was it a minibus in this sad story?

Regarding the original reporting and quoting, let's wait and see what the injured have to say (when they can) before assuming the bus driver didnt know the roads and just drove off it - although that might be convenient for some to believe.

pilots, bts, mrt, boats to KPG? sometimes accidents happen but not in the West right?

Ignorant post. Of course accidents happen in the west only we do EVERYTHING in our power to ensure saftey first - commerical drivers licenses, active traffic policing of our highways, regular commercial vehicle inspections (90 days), random drug testing of anyone holding a CDL, log books with driving hours that are checked, vehicle inspections before going out with defective vehicles being put out of service...could go on and on listing the preventitive measures we take to keep passengers safe. They do ANY of that here? doubt it and add to that the lack of common road sense (puling out into traffic without looking or driving on the wrong side of the road out of laziness) and you get what we have here every day.

In "the west" we would be outraged by this kind of carnage and stats and would do something about it right quick! here? mai phen rai

Seeing as the security forces were useless in terms of controlling the red protesters, what makes you think they were capable of controlling any other group?

Because the soldiers stationed at Silom have not even attempted to block the protesters - on the opposite - the have mingled with the PAD protesters, have encouraged them, and have hindered the police in arresting some of the PAD protesters after the slingshot battle between both groups occurred, which was stopped after police managed to get between the lines in a lull.

I recall the same sort of behaviour happening at certain barricades with reds turning up and soldiers who were there to prevent passage, simply stepping to one side. Whether that was because they were supporting the reds or because they were useless at their jobs, i'm not sure.

Point is, why would you expect professionalism when we were where we were at?

I never expect professionalism, organization, competence, honesty, common sense here ....wow maybe time to get the hell outta Dodge?

But the fact is, on that night, the red shirts had guns and grenades... were you on the front line.

Were you without a television?

We can argue all day about who fired first, we cant blame protestors and foot soldiers. We need to blame leaders, on both sides, if they have advocated or ordered violence.

What's with this "we" again?

We can't blame protesters?

You might not blame them. Others who believe it a crime to carry arms on the street, to take over parts of a city, to fire missiles, to set things on fire, might disagree that these people were all innocent victims.

We need to blame leaders, on both sides, if they have advocated or ordered violence.

On one side there were leaders advocating / ordering / inciting violence, and on the other they were simply trying to restore order. Doing so by force was the last option that ultimately they had no choice in making. There's only so long you can go on allowing a minority group to run riot in a city, and the protesters were given warning after warning, after more warning, that if they stayed they were likely to get hurt.

If you break the law and flee and a policeman tells you to stop running or he will shoot, you have two choices, and it's up to you what decision you make. No different from the protesters. They were told that they were breaking the law and that they should go home for their safety. Those who didn't go home and who got hurt have themselves to blame.

Exactly but you are using too much common sense

In aussie, faggots are classed as ''bent''.

it's 2011. just sayin

and shot medics, independant journos all unarmed... Do me a favour... go pull the ears off your teddy

Didnt you see the pic of the journo (as you put it) injured by a red grenade posted on this forum today.

Your memory is short.

Far to short to remember all the things we, who were here, saw the reds do, if not in person then on TV every day.

Send me a link to the page with the photo...please

still blows my mind that there are red shirt supporters on this board. why do you need a link it wasn't that long ago, everyone saw these thugs in action. I don't have a teddy to pull any ears off of whatever that means?

In the US a President has to be born in the US regardless of your citizenship.

So for example if I and my pregnant wife were American and lived near the Canadian border and decided to take a day trip to Canada where my wife then went into labour and gave birth my child would be illegible to run for the presidency?

Better he stay in Canada than be "illegible" :lol: