Have you ever had an adverse contact with the Thai Police? By that I mean:

 

1. You were physically abused.

2. You were verbally abused.

3. You were actually extorted.

4. You were detained or stopped without reason for the purpose of extortion.

5. You were framed for the purpose of extortion whether you paid or not.

 

Please be honest, especially with respect to Number 4 and 5.  Without reason means: being accused of a traffic violation or some other offense that you didnt commit. Please dont insert you Western ideas of probable cause, reasonable suspicion or the like. As I understand it here, the cops can just stop anyone they like for whatever reason they want, so it doesnt count if you were questioned in a roadblock or on the street, as long as it wasnt an extortion attempt. Further, if you were speeding and the cop took a few baht and let you go, that doesnt count as an adverse event, hell I wish you could do that in the States where a speeding fine could be $1000.

 

And lets put our big boy pants on, just because they let Thais get away with it is not an excuse as long as you werent extorted.

 

If you answered Yes, Id love to hear your story. And if it is something you heard from someone else, that doesnt count.

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1 minute ago, Swiss1960 said:

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why is that?

My only ever interaction with the police in my 6 years was being randomly searched once. I wasn't particularly happy about it but I can't say I was abused or extorted.

None apart from being stopped and searched (for drugs) a couple of times at Ekkamai bus station arriving from Trat and also a couple of times fined for helmetless riding, etc., which was fair and in general was fun and pleasant experience. So I'm in high regard of RTP.

Edited December 14, 20187 yr by MaksimMislavsky

Never got searched or abused, but have gotten shaken down a couple times, not for a few years though...

Never had any bad experiences with the police in Thailand for 20 years pluss. Paid my tickets for no helmet, driving motorbike wrong way and no license. I have been a good translater for one police, and he always give me a big grin every time I pass a control, and never stops me unless he needs some help. 

 

One thing I will never do, is to become to close to one or more police officers. 

Four occasions. Was nailed by one policemen with a big smile on his face, going down a soi marked No Entry ( in Thai ). 200 baht fine, would have cost 3000 baht in OZ.

No problem.

Expired registration on car I had bought, 1000 baht fine. My GF argued it down to 400 baht. I had the renewed registration paperwork in the glovebox, the actual sticker had not arrived from Bangkok, so I was a bit peeved.

GF fined for not wearing her seatbelt. 500 baht fine. Fair enough. She was seriously pissed off.

Registration on a different car expired, 1000 baht fine. 11 am. Quite amusing, because the checkpoint was loaded back into a police pickup within about a minute of me handing over the 1000 baht. I guess offenders between 11 am and lunchtime got a free pass.

Adverse contacts? Not really. Thai cops smile while they are collecting from you. I think the last time an Australian cop smiled was somewhere between Genesis and Noah's Ark.

2 hours ago, Lacessit said:

I think the last time an Australian cop smiled was somewhere between Genesis and Noah's Ark

You know that US Cops are taught how to scream "GET ON THE GROUND". They have yelling training.

We used to get pulled over by BIB a fair bit. I got fined twice, once for speeding, once for no Thai DL (my IDP had expired).

 

Since I got my Thai DL 18 months ago I've only been stopped at a checkpoint once. Driving from Chon Buri to Udon and back the following day we were stopped 4km from home, in the middle of nowhere. I was really looking forward to showing off my Thai DL but they didn't want to see it. They were just looking for drugs and weapons.

 

People tend to slag off the police whether it's here, UK...but there's no one I'd rather see if you or family have an accident.

 

There's only one type of people who don't like the cops turning up.

 

You'll always get a bad one I suppose and if you are unlucky enough to meet them then, yeah, probably put you off them.

 

Though I totally agree with the post above saying not to get too close/friendly with them.

Over the years the police stopped me probably a hundred times for not driving on the left lane with my motorcycle.

And most of the time they were happy with 100B cash.

A few times they wrote me a ticket because it seems they needed their monthly quota of tickets or something like that.

Sometimes it's a straight deal. They told me what I did wrong, I paid, case closed.

But sometimes this is like a game. Like on a market where you haggle about the price.

Sometimes I argued that rule is obviously only for small bikes and big bikes should be excepted from that. I got away with that a few times.

Other times I saw other guys slow down and then, when the cop thinks you stop, ride away. They didn't follow the guy so next time I did the same, it was fun.

Then there was that place after the bridge where I knew cops were waiting on the left side of the road. I drove down the bridge on the right lane with high speed with that catch- me-if-you-can attitude. They never tried and they never even looked angry, it's just a game.

The good thing about being stopped all the time is one gets used to the police and the way they act. I take it easy, joke with them, maybe tell them something like last time it was cheaper, just like a friendly conversation. Result: never any trouble.

 

I guess about the worst thing one can do is insult them with a bad attitude and bad words. I wouldn't do that one...

I'm innocent, it wasn't me, I didn't do it, It was someone else!

I'm protected.

Any adverse contact might be considered contradictory. 

 

 

 

 

CLOSED

 

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