Thai road safety: Green light given for police to spend half a billion baht on radar guns

[starky]

6 hours ago, newnative said:

I get out plenty and stand by my post.  I think it's the cops who need to get out more.

I've seen (and been done) by quite a few between Udon and KK and also on the way down to Buriram so they are out there. Also speed cameras are everywhere in that neck of the woods and growing in number daily.

[Happyman58]

10 hours ago, tryasimight said:

Yes I paid and got a receipt. I don't think it was a tea money setup as there looked to be a very senior bloke sitting  at the table.

A foreign license , as long as it is in English, is supposed to be good for 3 months.

Again at Chong Chom one cop asked if he could take a photo of the IDP.....I don't think he had seen one before.

The senior cops are more worse than the junior cops They tend to hold a straighter face while they are taking your money Its called teaching the younger cops the ropes

[YetAnother]

21 hours ago, Cuchulainn said:

848 of them will be tampered with.

and sales of radar detectors will go up

[Happyman58]

10 hours ago, Chaiwallah said:

New buses for Bangkok?

No i think the correct question is New tanks for army And we all know the answer to that one

[Airbagwill]

In most countries these sort of devices have to be operated by fully trained officers. Their positioning and usage is regulated and they have to be calibrated and certified at regular intervals.

They are used to report offences to the judiciary who have monitored systems for administering and collecting fines.

So can we have details that these devices will be used apprpriately? 

In the wrong hands they can actually represent a danger to road safety.

[fullcave]

22 hours ago, darksidedog said:

Not to mention seriously boost the income of the cops using them.

I welcome anything that can reduce accidents here and speeding is an issue.

A far bigger issue as we all know though, is the "get out of my way" attitude of masses of drivers here. Safety will improve when their awful driving is targeted and punished.

No actually speeding is not a BIG problem in Thailand. In fact, I rarely see someone speeding as they have speed cameras set up. However, I do often see overloaded one-ton pickups with loads up to three tons and three meters high blocking the passing lane, school children, and workers of every kind loaded into pickup trucks and three-wheelers, motorbikes loaded with children sitting in front of adults not wearing crash helmets, I guess this will pad the fall of stupid adult at expense of the child in case of accident. etc. etc. etc. And they want 500 million baht for handheld radar guns? Nothing to see here folks. 

[Airbagwill]

18 minutes ago, Happyman58 said:

The senior cops are more worse than the junior cops They tend to hold a straighter face while they are taking your money Its called teaching the younger cops the ropes

"more worse"?.. I hope you aren't one of those who criticises the English language skills of Thai people.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Airbagwill

[Airbagwill]

2 minutes ago, fullcave said:

No actually speeding is not a BIG problem in Thailand. In fact, I rarely see someone speeding as they have speed cameras set up. However, I do often see overloaded one-ton pickups with loads up to three tons and three meters high blocking the passing lane, school children, and workers of every kind loaded into pickup trucks and three-wheelers, motorbikes loaded with children sitting in front of adults not wearing crash helmets, I guess this will pad the fall of stupid adult at expense of the child in case of accident. etc. etc. etc. And they want 500 million baht for handheld radar guns? Nothing to see here folks. 

I'm guessing you are correct about speeding. It is very common for police to suggest "speed" was a factor in crashes. However as post crash analysis is non existent in Thailand, this must be a totally subjective perspective.

There is another point to bear in mind though. In most countries speeding is assessed with a leeway of + or - 3 to 5 kph/mph. In Thailand the margin is NIL.

This is basically a recipe for disaster as it vitually gives carte blanche to the police to ticket huge swathes of motorists in batches.

[lvr181]

23 hours ago, YetAnother said:

good example of how thailand works

Purchases must always have allowances built into the cost to allow for 'commissions' to be paid all the way up the corruption chain 

 

It's called robbing the poor (the hard working Thai citizen) to enrich the powerful and/or the connected.

 

Just another revenue raising exercise by the RTP. And what 'safeguards" will be in place to stop the the expected misuse of these devices?      NONE!!

 

And what effect will it have on road crash statistics? Very little! Show me a country or countries where such devices have actually proven to have reduced road trauma. Just another knee jerk reaction!

[manarak]

thailand should spend money on cars equipped with cameras to crack down on reckless driving.

[habanero]

18 hours ago, Destiny1990 said:

So who is selling them? No bulk discount? 

Good question. I wonder, hmmmmmmmmmmmm

[Destiny1990]

How about bumper tailing?

[Destiny1990]

13 hours ago, Cheops said:

On the tollways in Bangkok there are several places where they do speed checks and they stop the speedster at the next tollbooth.

 

But the fact is that even if you get a fine it will be like 1000 baht or less, which is not enough to keep people from speeding again. If they make it 10k baht people will stop speeding. The people who can afford to drive a car don't care about a 1k baht or less fine. The only annoyance I hear from people who got fined is when the police took their license and they lost time to get it back.

 

You only can change their behavior when you really hurt them in their wallet and at the same time start educating people as young as possible. 

U fine a pick up driver or mini van driver  10x 1000  bht then at some point they will slow down guaranteed. 

[4MyEgo]

15 hours ago, tryasimight said:

Might not do you much good as it's highly likely the guns will be laser based technology and not radar.

Just did a Google search, use of a radar detector in Thailand is not illegal "yet", however the cost of the detector would mean that you would have to get booked at least a dozen times for speeding before you start recouping your costs here in Thailand...<deleted> that 555

 

Will wait until they raise the speeding fines in years to come, in the meantime, might just keep getting the Mrs to slip them 200 baht each time they pull me over

[attrayant]

RADAR detectors are available for as little as $10.  LIDAR detectors from under $20.  It would be futile to make them illegal, since any 1st year electronics student knows how to build a simple radio.

[lvr181]

26 minutes ago, Destiny1990 said:

U fine a pick up driver or mini van driver  10x 1000  bht then at some point they will slow down guaranteed. 

Sounds good in theory but not all crashes are a result of speeding! It is purely revenue raising.

It is better to deter speeding by a police presence on the road. Why fine them after the 'event'? They may have caused a crash before ever reaching a speed camera.

My home country is full of fixed and hand held speed cameras yet the road toll still increases. I repeat - it is revenue raising! 

[attrayant]

9 minutes ago, lvr181 said:

I repeat - it is revenue raising!

 

Fine, then just call it a speeding permit.

[Ossy]

21 minutes ago, lvr181 said:

Sounds good in theory but not all crashes are a result of speeding! It is purely revenue raising.

It is better to deter speeding by a police presence on the road. Why fine them after the 'event'? They may have caused a crash before ever reaching a speed camera.

My home country is full of fixed and hand held speed cameras yet the road toll still increases. I repeat - it is revenue raising! 

Yes, that would be better, I'm sure, but at least the hand-held guns do offer that same element of surprise . . . just as a Highway Police car would. They're always parked up at the roadside stations - taking comfort breaks, I guess . . . or FaceBook gazing, more likely.

Edited October 21, 2017 by Ossy
meaning

[lvr181]

1 hour ago, Ossy said:

Yes, that would be better, I'm sure, but at least the hand-held guns do offer that same element of surprise . . . just as a Highway Police car would. They're always parked up at the roadside stations, taking comfort breaks . . . or FaceBook gazing more than likely.

Yup, just another waste of a useful resource and now they want to add a useless resource. Go figure.

 

But we should never lose sight of the fact that money is the god in the Kingdom, to so many, and any excuse to increase the money supply (which seems to flow upwards) in the guise of some other 'good' should never be overlooked. 

 

Sceptic maybe but also a realist.

Edited October 21, 2017 by metisdead
Strike out of comments in quoted post removed. 2. Please do not modify someone else's post in your quoted reply, either with font or color changes or wording.

[Happyman58]

3 hours ago, Airbagwill said:

"more worse"?.. I hope you aren't one of those who criticises the English language skills of Thai people.

Ok i go this way mate How about" <deleted> worse" Now is that plain english

[the guest]

On 10/20/2017 at 8:42 AM, Cadbury said:

In every sense of the meaning.

I see them advertised in the US for around 25,000 THB and allegedly at police quality. Big difference between that and nearly 675,000 THB. And they have the audacity to claim to have removed the corruption factor. 

 https://www.radargunsales.com/product/traffic-enforcement-police-radar-guns/genesis-handheld-directional-2/

 

Yes but this model is the 'Thai' version. Corruption fee has to be added !

[Happyman58]

3 hours ago, Airbagwill said:

In most countries these sort of devices have to be operated by fully trained officers. Their positioning and usage is regulated and they have to be calibrated and certified at regular intervals.

They are used to report offences to the judiciary who have monitored systems for administering and collecting fines.

So can we have details that these devices will be used apprpriately? 

In the wrong hands they can actually represent a danger to road safety.

apprpriately   mmmm  more like appropriately   i think you are trying say that word right  Maybe spelling needs adjusting  also  Then again i forgive people who make mistakes and not make fun of them when they are trying to say something

[Cheops]

5 hours ago, Destiny1990 said:

U fine a pick up driver or mini van driver  10x 1000  bht then at some point they will slow down guaranteed. 

But the reality is that they get caught only once in a while and they only check if you are speeding. 

 

They should check and give heavy fines for: tailgating, driving through red lights, driving against the traffic on the wrong side of the road, not wearing helmets etc.Oh, and drunk driving!

 

That's IF they are concerned about safety, but they are not. They don't care about the 60 up dead people EVERY day in the traffic. If they would care, they would actually start being serious and enforce the traffic laws.

[Cheops]

4 hours ago, lvr181 said:

Sounds good in theory but not all crashes are a result of speeding! It is purely revenue raising.

It is better to deter speeding by a police presence on the road. Why fine them after the 'event'? They may have caused a crash before ever reaching a speed camera.

My home country is full of fixed and hand held speed cameras yet the road toll still increases. I repeat - it is revenue raising! 

Are you living in Thailand? Thai people do not care wether there is police watching them during speeding, driving through red lights, speeding on the EMERGENCY LANE, etc. They really don't and the police let them do whatever they like to do. 

 

As said: the only thing that will work is hurting people in their wallet and do this every time they do not follow the traffic rules. And start educating people from secondary school up, but even this is not so effective as hurting people in their wallet. 

[Cheops]

18 hours ago, John Richards said:

Called radar jammers in the UK as they scramble the signal from the radar gun - however you're now looking at 12 months in prison for using one!! 

Wow, and what do you get when killing someone in the UK? Death penalty? They clearly lost it in the UK. And people on TV are commenting on the ridiculous prison terms in Thailand 

[sqwakvfr]

Is the Thai Government talking about traditional RADAR or LIDAR?  In my years in Law Enforcement in the US we used LIDAR devices(Laser Image Detection Range).  As many know in LIDAR a laser beam is shot at the target and the speed of the target and it's distance are then calculated.  I have been told LIDAR is more accurate and of course because it is newer technology more costly.  

[lvr181]

56 minutes ago, Cheops said:

Are you living in Thailand? Thai people do not care wether there is police watching them during speeding, driving through red lights, speeding on the EMERGENCY LANE, etc. They really don't and the police let them do whatever they like to do. 

 

As said: the only thing that will work is hurting people in their wallet and do this every time they do not follow the traffic rules. And start educating people from secondary school up, but even this is not so effective as hurting people in their wallet. 

"Thai people do not care wether (sic)there is police watching them..."    

 

Of course they don't care and that is because the RTP are not doing their job! That is the only reason.

 

[Chaiwallah]

11 hours ago, Happyman58 said:

No i think the correct question is New tanks for army And we all know the answer to that one

I already posted the same question on that thread. I didn't see articles about the purchase of submarines or an aircraft carrier, or I would've posted the same there, too.

[observer90210]

Smart move...half a billion invested will yield the double received in ["tea"] fines !!

[Humpy]

And perhaps a few thousand decibel monitors for the idiot brain dead motor cyclists with their modified  exhausts and similarly the lorries with their dustbin sized exhausts .  Has anybody ever seen any 'L' plates !!! ?