Speedtrap cams flourishing along Asia h/w - any info to share?

[Lannig]

I've just made a trip driving from downtown BKK to my place in Kamphaeng Phet province and I am amazed by the number of speedcam traps I think I may have noticed along the highway as well as the number of (obviously new) signs announcing the presence of such cams. I'm not a permanent resident here so I rent cars every time I come and I've already received a fine notification once along with police document and camera image (good quality I must say). I had been caught in April along the Asia highway (HW1/HW32) close to the Chainat intersection. The friendly staff at Budget told me that most Thai people just ignore these fines as there is no real legal way to coerce them into paying (yet - this is supposed to change soon) but rental companies must force their customers to pay them. So I did because I wouldn't get my new rental otherwise. They also told me that they are receiving a sharply increasing number of these fines.

Anyway, this seems like a new trend... I had hardly seen any speedcam in many years along this road, usually manually operated.

So ... anyone knows how many of these are real speedcams? I'm pretty sure that the one I've seen while passing Ayuttaya was a real one: binocular lenses, put on kind of a tripod over the concrete lane walls. Not sure about the other ones, might just be traffic monitoring cams, most of them attached to gantries or roadside poles.

Besides, does anyone have information on the speed tolerance they enforce? Obviously there must be some else just every other car I was driving along with when passing that speedcam in Ayuttaya would have been caught. Hardly anyone was under the 90 km/h limit, inclunding myself. Hard to tell based on  when I've been caught since I was way above the limit then, I must confess. Not especially proud of it, I was quite in a hurry to catch my plane in BKK which isn't a excuse for overspeeding, I know, I know. Sin confessed, I repent. 

Furthermore, are Thai drivers sharing the information about the presence of these speedcams? if so, how? Where I live the Waze app is very popular for this, but it doesn't seem to be much used here. There could be Facebook pages I guess, but it's not very handy when driving.

............................................................................................................................................

[hkt83100]

I would like to share the idea just to keep within the speed limits, which can save a considerable amount of money and hazzle. There is a rumor that the tolerance of the cam's settings is about 20 km/h, but do not rely on it.

[Lannig]

Thanks for the friendly advice and tip. Believe it or not, I usually do. But it's so easy to get over 90 km/h especially when just about everyone is driving faster on these highways. My understanding is that Thais don't care that much because until now, most of them just ignore the fines they receive at home. When you drive a rental car, that's a different story as I pointed out.

 

[shady86]

How fast you went and how much was the fine? There are a few apps out there pointing out speed camera locations and indeed there are a lot along HW1

[cooked]

Sygic navigation which you can get on your phone, shows up speed cameras, updated every 3 months I think. I've been driving a lot here for five years and haven't had a ticket yet, I'm jealous.

[Denim]

43 minutes ago, cooked said:

Sygic navigation which you can get on your phone, shows up speed cameras, updated every 3 months I think. I've been driving a lot here for five years and haven't had a ticket yet, I'm jealous.

Sometimes I drive over the limit at about 105 kph. At this speed I don't have to wait too long before someone cruises past pretty rapidly at about 125 +. 

  A few weeks ago , returning from Petchabun a motorcycle gang blasted past me at what must have been full throttle , lying on their tanks. One minute there was nothing behind me , the next a screaming crowd flashed past , three overtaking me on the hard shoulder. 

  At the next gas station , they were all there. Aged in their mid twenties on some quite expensive machines. I noticed that several of them had removed their licence plates for obvious reasons.

So....if there are speed cameras I think the more the merrier. Would love to see these guys caught. I'm sure they could all afford the couple of hundred baht backhanded but at least it would delay their arrival time.

If you want to race .....get on a track where there are no bystanders to kill.

[NUUM]

“friendly staff at Budget told me that most Thai people just ignore these fines as there is no real legal way to coerce them into paying”

 

Urban myth...they may not pay straight away, but eventually they will have to pay...

[Lannig]

On 10/7/2017 at 5:34 PM, shady86 said:

How fast you went and how much was the fine? There are a few apps out there pointing out speed camera locations and indeed there are a lot along HW1

The police report said 121 km/h which I find a bit difficult to believe but then again I was in a real hurry to catch my plane so yes, I might have been that stupid after all. Again, no need to lecture me, I'm not especially proud of this. The fine was 800THB (shown on the police document) plus a 100 THB processing fee by Budget. Something like one fifth of what I would have to pay in my home country for such overspeeding (notwithstanding the points cut from my license) so I thought that it was a real bargain. 

On 10/7/2017 at 9:47 PM, cooked said:

Sygic navigation which you can get on your phone, shows up speed cameras, updated every 3 months I think. I've been driving a lot here for five years and haven't had a ticket yet, I'm jealous.

I'm a long-time Sygic user and its speedcam database for Thailand is a complete joke. I've never seen anything but false alerts. For like 5 years, it's been advertising a speedcam 20 km or so south of my place in the KP province along HW1 that never, ever existed. I was precisely driving with Sygic open during my last trip from BKK to here and the very obvious speedcam along Ayuttaya wasn't shown in Sygic either.

 

So any other app suggestion with a better database would be appreciated.  

On 10/8/2017 at 9:59 AM, NUUM said:

“friendly staff at Budget told me that most Thai people just ignore these fines as there is no real legal way to coerce them into paying”

 

Urban myth...they may not pay straight away, but eventually they will have to pay...

It definitely isn't an urban myth at this time. I was discussing this with some people here and a distant member of my Thai family who drives a lot because he directs construction sites across the country has quite proudly shown to me a pile of 15 or so unpaid overspeeding fines received in the mail, stuffed in his car's glove box. However this situation is due to be short lived since the government has claimed that they will soon enforce having to pay any outstanding fine to be able to renew a car's road tax.

 

The tolerance up to 100 km/h has been confirmed to me by the husband of my favourite Koutieow cook who drives people back and forth to BKK with a van. However he's kind of a technophobe so the only information he relies on is on a piece of paper he updates when his friend tell him about a new speecam 

[Kwasaki]

Don't go main routes only takes a little time more and places you can go as fast as you want.

[alien365]

On 08/10/2017 at 9:59 AM, NUUM said:

“friendly staff at Budget told me that most Thai people just ignore these fines as there is no real legal way to coerce them into paying”

 

Urban myth...they may not pay straight away, but eventually they will have to pay...

They wait until they get a new years present by the general and get to pay them at a fraction of the cost.

[Thaidaddy]

There is also one camera at KM80 marker heading into Bangkok. Can anyone confirm what the actual base speed limit is for the Asian Highway these days?

[Blue Muton]

On 10/11/2017 at 11:15 PM, Lannig said:

.

 

.... my favourite Koutieow .....

Congratulations, you've just "invented" a new word. No, really, you have - Google it and bask in the glory of your achievement. Don't recall seeing just one result appear too often.

 

What is it supposed to be, out of interest?

[alien365]

9 minutes ago, Blue Muton said:

Congratulations, you've just "invented" a new word. No, really, you have - Google it and bask in the glory of your achievement. Don't recall seeing just one result appear too often.

 

What is it supposed to be, out of interest?

I'm guessing he means noodle. As it's a Thai word (ก๋วยเตี๋ยว) it's quite a difficult one to say, or spell in English.

[Blue Muton]

2 minutes ago, alien365 said:

I'm guessing he means noodle seller. As it's a Thai word (ก๋วยเตี๋ยว) it's quite a difficult one to say, or spell in English.

Thanks, not being a huge fan of noodles (except in Pad Thai or Pad See Ew) I hadn't got around to learning that. Online translaters romanise it as  Ǩwyteī̌yw, gŭay-dtĭeow or guay dtiaao.

[vincent13]

On 10/8/2017 at 9:59 AM, NUUM said:

“friendly staff at Budget told me that most Thai people just ignore these fines as there is no real legal way to coerce them into paying”

 

Urban myth...they may not pay straight away, but eventually they will have to pay...

I don't know if the law has changed yet but historically there was a 12 statute of limitations on speeding offences, which is why many Thais ignore such fines..

[MatteoBassini]

I can share one piece of info.

 

If you're going to speed, do it at night. When I had to get to pattaya at 7 AM and I was in Bangkok, I woke up late and had to speed really hard.

I was averaging 180 km/h non stop in my Fiesta on the motorway. It's been 6 months now and I haven't received a single fine in the mail.

 

I've received many fines from the same highway but all of them during the day. This confirms they don't work during the night, or at least from 4 AM to 6 AM, which was the time I was driving.

[Lannig]

1 hour ago, MatteoBassini said:

I can share one piece of info.

 

If you're going to speed, do it at night....

That's what I was assuming too until that guy I've already mentioned told me that he distinctively saw a flash going off twice at the location of one of the known speedtrap cams along HW#32. So they may not have deployed this flash-equipped model along HW#7 (that's the BKK-Chonburi motorway number isn't it ?) but I hope that you're not up for a suprise soon.

[hawker9000]

7 hours ago, Lannig said:

That's what I was assuming too until that guy I've already mentioned told me that he distinctively saw a flash going off twice at the location of one of the known speedtrap cams along HW#32. So they may not have deployed this flash-equipped model along HW#7 (that's the BKK-Chonburi motorway number isn't it ?) but I hope that you're not up for a suprise soon.

Does the fact that there's a flash necessarily mean it's working correctly?   And if not, I'm guessing it would take months before anybody even realized it.

 

[tryasimight]

On 10/7/2017 at 10:43 PM, Denim said:

Sometimes I drive over the limit at about 105 kph. At this speed I don't have to wait too long before someone cruises past pretty rapidly at about 125 +. 

  A few weeks ago , returning from Petchabun a motorcycle gang blasted past me at what must have been full throttle , lying on their tanks. One minute there was nothing behind me , the next a screaming crowd flashed past , three overtaking me on the hard shoulder. 

  At the next gas station , they were all there. Aged in their mid twenties on some quite expensive machines. I noticed that several of them had removed their licence plates for obvious reasons.

So....if there are speed cameras I think the more the merrier. Would love to see these guys caught. I'm sure they could all afford the couple of hundred baht backhanded but at least it would delay their arrival time.

If you want to race .....get on a track where there are no bystanders to kill.

Presumably you were all going in the same direction? Who were the bystanders they were going to kill?

[sstuff3]

I can confirm with 100% certainty that the speed cameras work at night and provide some excellent quality pictures.  Received a ticket in the mail today from the speed camera at Km 5 on the Route 9 Outer Ring Rd coming from Bang Pa-in to Bangkok.  I passed the area around 10:45pm, speed limit 120 kph and received a ticket for traveling at 126 kph.  I remember seeing the flash of light as I passed and checked my speed which said 117 so I wasn't too worried.  Either my speedometer is off or the calibration of the camera is but that's an argument you would likely never win here.  Just going to pay the 500 baht fine and make a mental note of the location of the camera for future reference. 

[Lannig]

I was on my way back from Sattahip to Kamphaeng Phet last night and just to give it a try I had the Tomtom Safety Cameras app open on my Android. It did seem to know the existence of a couple of cameras along the outer ring road (route 9) but that's pretty much what it knew along the whole 600 km trip.

Oddly enough, just as I was on the ring road approaching one of these cameras somewhere around the Rangsit/Nakorn Nayok interchange, a car zoomed by me, it must have been doing well over 130 km/h. I expected the flash to go off (it was quite visible) but nothing has happened. Broken?

[juehoe]

How fast you went and how much was the fine? There are a few apps out there pointing out speed camera locations and indeed there are a lot along HW1

There is a speed trap since many years near Korat, where the speed limit is reduced to 90 km/m. My Thai relatives tend to drive fast (with our cars) and so we got 3 fines so far. We got a letter with the picture of our car.

The car were trapped with more than 120 km/h (up to 140 km/h) and the fine was THB 500.

[Lannig]

Still don't understand why the fine was 800 THB for me then.

That's what was written on the actual police document sent to me by budget (I can read thai). Doctored document by Budget? I kind of doubt they'd be doing that kind of thing.

Anyway... I drove more than 3,000km altogether on Thai highways during my last stay in Thailand, now hoping they're wont be another mail to coming in from Budget...

[Rotweiler]

The myth that Thai drivers ignore photo-radar tickets is exactly that - a myth.

 

Some may be forced to pay within weeks, some might have 11 1/2 months.  But all will pay eventually since their car can no longer be registered if there is an an outstanding, unpaid,  ticket.

 

 

On 10/13/2017 at 7:05 PM, vincent13 said:

I don't know if the law has changed yet but historically there was a 12 statute of limitations on speeding offences, which is why many Thais ignore such fines..

 

[akirasan]

Has anyone had any experience here with radar detectors like this one?

http://www.lazada.co.th/cobra-esd-9275-digital-9-band-laser-radar-detector-w-safety-alertamp-lasereye-intl-36638409.html?spm=a2o4m.search.0.0.183d555e7mvzNR&ff=1

I generally sit on 100 but I noticed the speed limit along many highways is 90

[madhav]

1 hour ago, akirasan said:

Has anyone had any experience here with radar detectors like this one?

http://www.lazada.co.th/cobra-esd-9275-digital-9-band-laser-radar-detector-w-safety-alertamp-lasereye-intl-36638409.html?spm=a2o4m.search.0.0.183d555e7mvzNR&ff=1

I generally sit on 100 but I noticed the speed limit along many highways is 90

I used a machine called a ‘valentine one’ for years in Australia and they work well for specific types of hand held speed cameras, especially if you drive the same route. It looks to be a similar type of tech to the one you linked. They can and do false detect for all kinds of devices though, especially in built up areas.

 

Problem is that there are newer more modern types of speed cameras that use a different tech, not sure if this is even possible to detect. They were introduced some 10 years back in Australia and then it all changed so not as reliable as before.

 

I am not sure what tech they use in Thailand. In Samui where I live there are absolutely zero laws in regards to speeding. At night it basically becomes a racetrack and you hear can groups of cars and bikes racing the ‘circuit’. 

[JaiLai]

“friendly staff at Budget told me that most Thai people just ignore these fines as there is no real legal way to coerce them into paying”
 
Urban myth...they may not pay straight away, but eventually they will have to pay...

Pls explain how they will have to pay.

Been getting them for years, straight in the bin.



Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[jimster]

On 10/8/2017 at 9:59 AM, NUUM said:

“friendly staff at Budget told me that most Thai people just ignore these fines as there is no real legal way to coerce them into paying”

 

Urban myth...they may not pay straight away, but eventually they will have to pay...

No they don't.

 

The worst that can happen is that next year's car registration (aka road tax) will be inhibited. Many Thai drivers DON'T pay these fines with little or no consequences.

 

It's different in western countries. Travel 1km/h (in some jurisdictions it's 4km/h or 9km/h) over the speed limit in Australia and you receive a fine of somewhere around A$75 (could be more now, not sure). They give you 3 weeks to pay. If you don't pay within that time limit, they'll send you a reminder notice giving you an additional 3 weeks to pay. If you still don't pay, there will be a third and final notice, this time with an administration fee attached. If you don't pay this time, they can seize your assets with a court order. I don't think there is any legal equivalent in Thailand.

 

In Thailand,  there are no consequences whether you receive 100 fine notices a year or only 1 and whether you pay any or all of these, the end result is the same. In Australia, you will lose your licence if you receive too many speeding fines within a certain period of time.

 

In Australia, traffic infringements are considered serious issues, in Thailand, it's barely a slap on the wrist. Hence why I like driving in Thailand. :)

[jimster]

I've been told that speed cameras won't issue you with a fine unless you are doing 120km/h or more even though the official speed limit on the Asia highway is just 90km/h. Indeed the only times I've ever been issued with a fine was when I was doing in excess of 120km/h.

 

For some reason, there are more speed cameras on the Asia highway, mainly between Bang Pa-in and Chainat than almost any other highway in Thailand. I recall there being speed cameras at kms 51, 81 and 131. There may be one or two more but they are likely dummy cameras. I'd slow down to around 100 or less just to be on the safe side though as I mentioned, I haven't been caught unless I was doing more than 120km/h - I swear I was doing 110-120 past some of these cameras, forgetting to slow down in time and wasn't issued a fine. Haven't been driving that direction for some months now.

 

On other roads - there are speed cameras at kms 5 and 18 on the eastern outer ring road and km 58 of the Bangkok-Chonburi motorway. Speed limit on both these roads is 120. For some bizarre reason, there are sometimes 2 contradictory signs on the Bangkok-Chonburi motorway with one speed limit sign saying 90 and the other saying 120. You won't have any problems driving 120km/h throughout the entire length of the motorway, except of course slowing down at the toll plazas (Lad Krabang and Phan Thong).

[jimster]

On 10/11/2017 at 11:15 PM, Lannig said:

The police report said 121 km/h which I find a bit difficult to believe but then again I was in a real hurry to catch my plane so yes, I might have been that stupid after all. Again, no need to lecture me, I'm not especially proud of this. The fine was 800THB (shown on the police document) plus a 100 THB processing fee by Budget. Something like one fifth of what I would have to pay in my home country for such overspeeding (notwithstanding the points cut from my license) so I thought that it was a real bargain. 

I'm a long-time Sygic user and its speedcam database for Thailand is a complete joke. I've never seen anything but false alerts. For like 5 years, it's been advertising a speedcam 20 km or so south of my place in the KP province along HW1 that never, ever existed. I was precisely driving with Sygic open during my last trip from BKK to here and the very obvious speedcam along Ayuttaya wasn't shown in Sygic either.

 

So any other app suggestion with a better database would be appreciated.  

It definitely isn't an urban myth at this time. I was discussing this with some people here and a distant member of my Thai family who drives a lot because he directs construction sites across the country has quite proudly shown to me a pile of 15 or so unpaid overspeeding fines received in the mail, stuffed in his car's glove box. However this situation is due to be short lived since the government has claimed that they will soon enforce having to pay any outstanding fine to be able to renew a car's road tax.

 

The tolerance up to 100 km/h has been confirmed to me by the husband of my favourite Koutieow cook who drives people back and forth to BKK with a van. However he's kind of a technophobe so the only information he relies on is on a piece of paper he updates when his friend tell him about a new speecam 

 

LOL...so you think you're going to be put on "trial" by the "judges" at Thaivisa?

 

Just for your info, i usually do 130-140 when it's safe to do so, otherwise 100-120. Am I proud of it? I've been doing it for years, just like other Thai drivers and I don't care what some Thaivisa farang armchair judges think. Driving the Thai way on Thai roads is still safer than driving the "farang" way - like whenever I see some uber law abiding farang do 80 driving on the badly damaged left lane of a major highway carefully letting everyone pass them always elicits a chuckle out of me. Seems they didn't get the memo that no one in Thailand drives that way and it's probably safer to keep right (when the left lane is in a state of disrepair due to overloaded trucks) and drive at around 100-120 keeping as much distance between you and other vehicles than turtling along at or below the official speed limit.