Samui traffic jams

[khunPer]

10 hours ago, bangrak said:

Why are the traffic lights not kept working

All traffic lights except one (Ring Road to Laem Din) has been switched off, as traffic functions better without the stop-light. The former traffic light in Nathon has been has since been replaced with a big well functioning roundabout.

 

10 hours ago, bangrak said:

But what is, to me, really irritating are the traffic jams, from about 2.30 to 9 p.m. or later, caused by those 'walking streets', ki-lo-me-ters long cues, thousands of vehicles, ...and tens of thousands of people of all kind, time after time, blocked for an hour or two, for whose sake may I ask? A couple of hunderd 'visiting' tourists (spending very little), the keepers of a hunderd stalls or so...? 

Fisherman Village's Walking Street on mainly Fridays, but also Mondays, is a great success, and business, so you will likely count a lot more than "a couple of hundred tourists", and they do spend more than little – restaurants there has many customers on Fridays and Mondays, and their menus don't have "little" prices...????

 

Today Friday I passed there at 4:15 by car from Maenam towards southern Bo Phut, smooth traffic and no queue at all, passed again at 5:30 when returning, also smooth traffic, but some Fridays can have been problematic between 4 pm and 8 pm...????

[wilcopops]

Roads on Samui are small, relatively narrow, and poorly maintained. They are also very poorly designed, signed and engineered - couple this with unrestricted access to motor vehicles from the mainland and the preponderance of holiday maker/foreign drivers especially on 2 wheeled transport you have a perfect storm for RTIs and traffic jams.

It  would help if vehicles were required to have a permit to be on the island in order to cut down the number of vehicles and a blanket island speed limit might help.

However, true to form, these measures in Thailand are virtually unenforceable.

the conclusion that the local authorities have given scant consideration to the real probes of traffic on the island is unavoidable. 

One just has to look at the conflicting and over-supplies of public transport on the island.....taxis, Song Teaws, minivans and tour buses have now been joined by a public bus service. More and more vehicles are being poured onto the roads without any consideration for need or function......add to this a rudimentary unplanned road system and you have a recipe for chaos and disaster.

 

[wilcopops]

On 3/2/2019 at 4:50 AM, khunPer said:

with a big well functioning roundabout.

The roundabout at Nathon whilst an improvement on traffic lights is a testimony to the almost total lack of traffic engineering on the island or in Thailand asa whole - it is one of the worst laid out roundabouts I've ever seen!

[BlackWolf]

4 hours ago, wilcopops said:

Roads on Samui are small, relatively narrow, and poorly maintained. They are also very poorly designed, signed and engineered - couple this with unrestricted access to motor vehicles from the mainland and the preponderance of holiday maker/foreign drivers especially on 2 wheeled transport you have a perfect storm for RTIs and traffic jams.

It  would help if vehicles were required to have a permit to be on the island in order to cut down the number of vehicles and a blanket island speed limit might help.

However, true to form, these measures in Thailand are virtually unenforceable.

the conclusion that the local authorities have given scant consideration to the real probes of traffic on the island is unavoidable. 

One just has to look at the conflicting and over-supplies of public transport on the island.....taxis, Song Teaws, minivans and tour buses have now been joined by a public bus service. More and more vehicles are being poured onto the roads without any consideration for need or function......add to this a rudimentary unplanned road system and you have a recipe for chaos and disaster.

 

 

[BlackWolf]

I think you have pointed out tg¨he real problems for the trafic jam on Samui, But dont expect that the authorities are going to do somthing about it.

[spidermike007]

I lived on Samui for 9 years, starting almost 15 years ago. Back then, it was a lovely island, with a modest amount of traffic. Once Yingluck came up with the car loan scheme, nearly everyone went out and bought vehicles. Combine that with the minivans, the constant parade of cement trucks, taxis, and other trucks and cars, plying one main road, and you have alot of traffic. Now, something it takes me five minutes to cross the Ring Road, as a pedestrian. It is definitely not the island it once was. Still a beautiful island, if you get away from the horrendously ugly Ring Road. But, it is becoming very highly developed, more expensive all the time, and does not have the charm it once had. 

 

It is also one of the most dangerous roads on the planet. If you are driving on Samui, be extremely careful.

[khunPer]

7 hours ago, wilcopops said:

Roads on Samui are small, relatively narrow, and poorly maintained. They are also very poorly designed, signed and engineered - couple this with unrestricted access to motor vehicles from the mainland and the preponderance of holiday maker/foreign drivers especially on 2 wheeled transport you have a perfect storm for RTIs and traffic jams.

It  would help if vehicles were required to have a permit to be on the island in order to cut down the number of vehicles and a blanket island speed limit might help.

However, true to form, these measures in Thailand are virtually unenforceable.

the conclusion that the local authorities have given scant consideration to the real probes of traffic on the island is unavoidable. 

One just has to look at the conflicting and over-supplies of public transport on the island.....taxis, Song Teaws, minivans and tour buses have now been joined by a public bus service. More and more vehicles are being poured onto the roads without any consideration for need or function......add to this a rudimentary unplanned road system and you have a recipe for chaos and disaster.

The real problem is the number of tourists, limit and reducing that number will result in (much) less traffic, and the road design will fit the original lay out from the mid 1970'ies, when the first few cars hit Samui, and they began the work of a road around the island, today the Ring Road, which was never designed for mass tourism, or rows of fuel trucks bringing Jet A1 from a ferry to an airport that no one could imagine by that time.

 

If you wish to join the Samui community as of today, either as tourist or as expat, the road layout and traffic is part of the amazing Thailand adventure that brings you here; just enjoy it with a smile...????

[khunPer]

2 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

I lived on Samui for 9 years, starting almost 15 years ago. Back then, it was a lovely island, with a modest amount of traffic. Once Yingluck came up with the car loan scheme, nearly everyone went out and bought vehicles. Combine that with the minivans, the constant parade of cement trucks, taxis, and other trucks and cars, plying one main road, and you have alot of traffic. Now, something it takes me five minutes to cross the Ring Road, as a pedestrian. It is definitely not the island it once was. Still a beautiful island, if you get away from the horrendously ugly Ring Road. But, it is becoming very highly developed, more expensive all the time, and does not have the charm it once had. 

 

It is also one of the most dangerous roads on the planet. If you are driving on Samui, be extremely careful.

< images intentionally deleted in quote >

Yes, traffic is chaotic and dangerous, mainly because of speed and alcohol, so here the authorities could make a difference –and fine-income – if they started to control it, including helmet check at night for motorbikes.

 

Agree that the Ring Road at some (many) points are very difficult to cross – again mainly due to speed – seemed like when the fairly uneven cheap cement roads got an even make-up surface by tarmac, the speed increased; mainly because it was possible to drive faster than before.

 

However, I don't think Yingluck's 100k baht car award finance program had much impact on Samui – whilst it had great impact in other areas like up Isaan – that program was for first time car buyers of smaller domestic made private cars only, not the increasing number of minibusses; cement trucks; delivery vans; taxis; and Mercedes, and like hi-end make-face, cars on Samui; they all came to the island due to increasing number of guests...????

[wilcopops]

6 hours ago, khunPer said:

mainly because of speed and alcohol,

As ever identifying single issues re road safety contributes absolutely nothing to a true understanding of what is actually going on and why. 

[wilcopops]

posting images of crashes is not helpful...I can do that for anywhere in the world - all it does is reinforce confirmation and cognitive biases.

Edited March 3, 2019 by wilcopops

[khunPer]

1 hour ago, wilcopops said:

As ever identifying single issues re road safety contributes absolutely nothing to a true understanding of what is actually going on and why. 

Statistically are alcohol the cause of 40% to 43% of traffic accidents in Thailand, and high speed 26% to 28%, measured both totally over a number of years, and for the individual "seven dangerous days" twice a year at the new year celebrations.

 

When we had the two printed newspapers on the island, the monthly police stats for traffic accidents were published. It was stated that between 80% and 85% of the accidents involved alcohol (i.e. drunk driving), only around 15% of the total number of accidents involved foreigners. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, we haven't seen any public stats since the printed papers ceased about a decade ago. There a group called ROKS (Roads of Koh Samu) that try to keep track of the accidents, you should be able to find them on Facebook.

 

Furthermore Samui has the most fatal traffic in Thailand measured after EEC standand, where Thailand is already number one in the World.

 

So cutting alcohol – and speed – cases could statistically improve Samui's traffic safety, it's not just a few single issues, but rather a major problem, and furthermore "a true understanding for what is actually going on and why".

????

[SamuiGeezer]

On 3/2/2019 at 4:50 AM, khunPer said:

All traffic lights except one (Ring Road to Laem Din) has been switched off, as traffic functions better without the stop-light. The former traffic light in Nathon has been has since been replaced with a big well functioning roundabout.

It may do but it is more dangerous and creates chaos. I do note traffic is much worse when the Bophut traffic lights are policed (to help traffic flow).

 

17 hours ago, wilcopops said:

The roundabout at Nathon whilst an improvement on traffic lights is a testimony to the almost total lack of traffic engineering on the island or in Thailand asa whole - it is one of the worst laid out roundabouts I've ever seen!

It isn't an improvement on traffic lights. There is nothing wrong with the roundabout, just the people not understanding how to use it, what makes it the worst?

 

1 hour ago, khunPer said:

Statistically are alcohol the cause of 40% to 43% of traffic accidents in Thailand, and high speed 26% to 28%, measured both totally over a number of years, and for the individual "seven dangerous days" twice a year at the new year celebrations.

 

When we had the two printed newspapers on the island, the monthly police stats for traffic accidents were published. It was stated that between 80% and 85% of the accidents involved alcohol (i.e. drunk driving), only around 15% of the total number of accidents involved foreigners. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, we haven't seen any public stats since the printed papers ceased about a decade ago. There a group called ROKS (Roads of Koh Samu) that try to keep track of the accidents, you should be able to find them on Facebook.

 

Furthermore Samui has the most fatal traffic in Thailand measured after EEC standand, where Thailand is already number one in the World.

 

So cutting alcohol – and speed – cases could statistically improve Samui's traffic safety, it's not just a few single issues, but rather a major problem, and furthermore "a true understanding for what is actually going on and why".

????

I always respect your opinion khunPer and you are right to a certain degree, but on Samui we have a particularly noxious cocktail. We have both Thai and Farang drunk riders/drivers. We have both Thai and Farang unlicensed riders/drivers (who have no concept of the 'highway code'). Like everywhere in Thailand we have people driving cars like they are motorbikes, we have the crazy drivers that want overtake when there isn't a gap, then indicate left and will push you off the road unless you brake. And we also have the drivers/riders that plod along at 20kph and P everyone off.

We also have poorly maintained and narrow roads which assist in making Samui one of the most dangerous places in the world to ride a motorbike/scooter ...............

[wilcopops]

6 hours ago, khunPer said:

Statistically are alcohol the cause of 40% to 43% of traffic accidents in Thailand, and high speed 26% to 28%, measured both totally over a number of years, and for the individual "seven dangerous days" twice a year at the new year celebrations.

 

When we had the two printed newspapers on the island, the monthly police stats for traffic accidents were published. It was stated that between 80% and 85% of the accidents involved alcohol (i.e. drunk driving), only around 15% of the total number of accidents involved foreigners. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, we haven't seen any public stats since the printed papers ceased about a decade ago. There a group called ROKS (Roads of Koh Samu) that try to keep track of the accidents, you should be able to find them on Facebook.

 

Furthermore Samui has the most fatal traffic in Thailand measured after EEC standand, where Thailand is already number one in the World.

 

So cutting alcohol – and speed – cases could statistically improve Samui's traffic safety, it's not just a few single issues, but rather a major problem, and furthermore "a true understanding for what is actually going on and why".

????

You need to consider how stats are compiled, by who and more importantly how to interpret them.

For instance when a stat says alcohol was involved in an RTI how was this arrived at? By the international standard or by a local policeman.

Although the stats certainly give us a broad impression about alcohol, it isn't a single issue and as we all know even a small amount of alcohol affects your driving ability. This is the SINGLE  issue perspective..however what it ignores is the effect of the whole driving environment (e.g the 3Es) and how this exacerbates the situation.

BTW. the standard way to record and analyse RTIs is not carried out in Thailand which isa major part of the problem. Normally any incident would have 3 categories of injury.... minor, serious and death....... these stats are hardly ever collated.....even at Songkhran.

Stats are not just collected by police. In the case of an RTI you firstly need properly trained road incident analysts and then need to collate and interpret.....at present Thailand collects information from about half a dozen sources but this is still a hugely haphazard a fair.

Samui is a holiday island with a poor road system and to suggest that some vague drink drive laws on their own will have any significant effect on some unprofessionally collated statistics is pure speculation.

Samui suffers from the same attitudes as the rest of the country....people who think they know are totally ignoring the science of road safety, which is why Thailand is bucking the international trends of developed countries who are successfully reducing road casualties.

[bojo]

9 hours ago, wilcopops said:

posting images of crashes is not helpful...I can do that for anywhere in the world - all it does is reinforce confirmation and cognitive biases.

However, a picture paints a thousnad words........

[Samui Bodoh]

Er... Ahem... Oh... Ahhh.

 

Yes, driving and traffic is bad on Koh Samui. And, it seems, all agree.

 

Sorry, what is this discussion/argument about?

 

 

 

[Tropicalevo]

9 hours ago, khunPer said:

 

When we had the two printed newspapers on the island, the monthly police stats for traffic accidents were published. It was stated that between 80% and 85% of the accidents involved alcohol (i.e. drunk driving), only around 15% of the total number of accidents involved foreigners. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, we haven't seen any public stats since the printed papers ceased about a decade ago. There a group called ROKS (Roads of Koh Samu) that try to keep track of the accidents, you should be able to find them on Facebook.

 

Furthermore Samui has the most fatal traffic in Thailand measured after EEC standand, where Thailand is already number one in the World.

 

Spot on KhunPer. I believe that the reason for the lack of statistics on Samui was that they showed just how dangerous the roads here are.

 

I have not seen any published stats for a while, but the last figure that I saw was more than 500 deaths per year from motorbike accidents alone. That was just Samui.

 

That figure is actually misleading. The real number is much higher. This is because of the way that road deaths are reported. That figure is just the number of people who die at the roadside. Those that die in the ambulance, at the hospital or elsewhere - are not included.

 

I pass this information on to guests that ask me where they can rent a scooter. Many of them change their mind and opt for a car instead. I like to think that I have maybe saved someone's life by taking this approach.

 

A lot of the blame also falls on the shoulders of the people who rent out the bikes. Sometimes even knowing that the person has never ridden one before. The rental company that I use tries to minimise the dangers by asking two questions before he hands over the keys. Get one answer in the negative and no rental! The questions are

 

1 Have you ridden a scooter before?

 

2 Show me a driving licence

[PoorSucker]

Your taxi is here. 

[spidermike007]

19 hours ago, khunPer said:

Yes, traffic is chaotic and dangerous, mainly because of speed and alcohol, so here the authorities could make a difference –and fine-income – if they started to control it, including helmet check at night for motorbikes.

 

Agree that the Ring Road at some (many) points are very difficult to cross – again mainly due to speed – seemed like when the fairly uneven cheap cement roads got an even make-up surface by tarmac, the speed increased; mainly because it was possible to drive faster than before.

 

However, I don't think Yingluck's 100k baht car award finance program had much impact on Samui – whilst it had great impact in other areas like up Isaan – that program was for first time car buyers of smaller domestic made private cars only, not the increasing number of minibusses; cement trucks; delivery vans; taxis; and Mercedes, and like hi-end make-face, cars on Samui; they all came to the island due to increasing number of guests...????

 

Which seem to be declining the past year or two, due to a significant number of reasons, so maybe Samui will calm down after all. This past peak season I had no problem finding a room at the last minute, for a very good deal. Most hotels had 70% occupancy, over the holidays. Unheard of, in years past.

[khunPer]

13 hours ago, SamuiGeezer said:

It may do but it is more dangerous and creates chaos. I do note traffic is much worse when the Bophut traffic lights are policed (to help traffic flow).

 

It isn't an improvement on traffic lights. There is nothing wrong with the roundabout, just the people not understanding how to use it, what makes it the worst?

 

I always respect your opinion khunPer and you are right to a certain degree, but on Samui we have a particularly noxious cocktail. We have both Thai and Farang drunk riders/drivers. We have both Thai and Farang unlicensed riders/drivers (who have no concept of the 'highway code'). Like everywhere in Thailand we have people driving cars like they are motorbikes, we have the crazy drivers that want overtake when there isn't a gap, then indicate left and will push you off the road unless you brake. And we also have the drivers/riders that plod along at 20kph and P everyone off.

We also have poorly maintained and narrow roads which assist in making Samui one of the most dangerous places in the world to ride a motorbike/scooter ...............

Thanks...

I see exactly the same as you, but I don't see all at all times, so therefore I used the available local stats. And even they are a bit old now, as we have not been updated public for a decade, they might not be that outdated: 80% to 85% of accidents involved drunk driving, and around 15% of the accidents involved foreigners (the stats didn't specify if 85% of the foreigners were drunk). And looking at various photos, including those shared by @spidermike007, some degree of (high) speed is needed to cause the level of shown damage. As I said in an earlier post, its like the speed on the Ring Road has increased after the tarmac make-up came on top, and there are also more fast driving wanna-be motorbikes taking over now, so speed must indeed be a major factor. In the latest general Thai stats speed counts for more than 1/4 of the accidents. That's why I state that alcohol and speed are important issues to improve road safety.

 

And there might be a difference between what irritates us in the traffic – like 20 kph driver, and bad signalling – and what is actually the direct cause of accidents; it might not be the slow driving vehicle, but rather the one that takes over at high speed under wrong conditions.

????

[khunPer]

8 hours ago, wilcopops said:

You need to consider how stats are compiled, by who and more importantly how to interpret them.

For instance when a stat says alcohol was involved in an RTI how was this arrived at? By the international standard or by a local policeman.

Although the stats certainly give us a broad impression about alcohol, it isn't a single issue and as we all know even a small amount of alcohol affects your driving ability. This is the SINGLE  issue perspective..however what it ignores is the effect of the whole driving environment (e.g the 3Es) and how this exacerbates the situation.

BTW. the standard way to record and analyse RTIs is not carried out in Thailand which isa major part of the problem. Normally any incident would have 3 categories of injury.... minor, serious and death....... these stats are hardly ever collated.....even at Songkhran.

Stats are not just collected by police. In the case of an RTI you firstly need properly trained road incident analysts and then need to collate and interpret.....at present Thailand collects information from about half a dozen sources but this is still a hugely haphazard a fair.

Samui is a holiday island with a poor road system and to suggest that some vague drink drive laws on their own will have any significant effect on some unprofessionally collated statistics is pure speculation.

Samui suffers from the same attitudes as the rest of the country....people who think they know are totally ignoring the science of road safety, which is why Thailand is bucking the international trends of developed countries who are successfully reducing road casualties.

Thanks for your detailed reply.

 

I said, and still believe in, that alcohol checks, and speed checks, will have an effect on Samui's traffic safety, no matter how the stats are measured, and injuries divided in the non fatal group...????

[khunPer]

4 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

 

Which seem to be declining the past year or two, due to a significant number of reasons, so maybe Samui will calm down after all. This past peak season I had no problem finding a room at the last minute, for a very good deal. Most hotels had 70% occupancy, over the holidays. Unheard of, in years past.

However, seem to be still more Minibusses – also this season, but shall admit that I have not counted all...???? – hotel vacancy could well be caused the change in guests with more families arriving, so more guests are renting a villa, or fully serviced villa, than an ordinary hotel accommodation. In another local Samui thread about number of visitors, it was stated that up-end villa rentals were 100% booked from Xmas/New Year til end of April.

[wilcopops]

8 hours ago, bojo said:

However, a picture paints a thousnad words........

As said earlier, that is precisely what a picture doesn't do.

All it does is reinforce, confirmation bias for those not prepared to think critically about the issues 

Edited March 4, 2019 by wilcopops

[wilcopops]

28 minutes ago, khunPer said:

Thanks for your detailed reply.

 

I said, and still believe in, that alcohol checks, and speed checks, will have an effect on Samui's traffic safety, no matter how the stats are measured, and injuries divided in the non fatal group...????

This is an assumption and there is no reliable data to suggest what the effects might be.....recent road mods on thew tile between Nathon and Bophut for instance are likely to increase fatalities

[Kieran00001]

On 2/22/2019 at 11:02 PM, SamuiGeezer said:

It definitely is not worse than Bangkok, that is tosh! For sure, there are too many vehicles and too many idiots on the roads of Samui.

For the locals my theory is that Somchai, to have some credibility gets a 4x4 on credit. He lives in a shack but is king (of the road) until the car is reclaimed by the credit company. Then the next family member gets a 4 x 4 on credit and so on .....

 

If that's your theory then you know nothing of the demographics of Samui, go take a look, follow one of the Thai 4x4 drivers home to their "shack" which is more likely actually a mansion with an armed guard who stops you from following his boss, then follow one of the foreigners back to their beach shack and ask them how much credit they owe, and then please do try to get a grip on your racist urges to dribble all over this site.

[khunPer]

40 minutes ago, wilcopops said:

This is an assumption and there is no reliable data to suggest what the effects might be.....recent road mods on thew tile between Nathon and Bophut for instance are likely to increase fatalities

"Likely" is an assumption, do you have any stats that the road work there has caused any increase in traffic accidents on that part of the Ring Road..?

 

WHO says:

»The implementation of random breath testing and sobriety checkpoints for drivers has been found to significantly reduce crashes.«
WHO source: "Facts, Road safety - Alcohol"

 

There are also scientific studies available on the impact of alcohol policies and thereby reduction of crash rates, so it seem to work well when enforced by the authorities (police).

????

[GalaxyMan]

1 hour ago, khunPer said:

Thanks for your detailed reply.

 

I said, and still believe in, that alcohol checks, and speed checks, will have an effect on Samui's traffic safety, no matter how the stats are measured, and injuries divided in the non fatal group...????

The easiest way to effectively control the speed would be to put significant speed bumps every 100m on the ring road. That would slow things down a lot and it would be a fairly inexpensive way of getting the job done.

[wilcopops]

3 hours ago, khunPer said:

"Likely" is an assumption, do you have any stats that the road work there has caused any increase in traffic accidents on that part of the Ring Road..?

 

WHO says:

»The implementation of random breath testing and sobriety checkpoints for drivers has been found to significantly reduce crashes.«
WHO s source: "Facts, Road safety - Alcohol"

 

There are also scientific studies available on the impact of alcohol policies and thereby reduction of crash rates, so it seem to work well when enforced by the authorities (police).

????

You are cherry picking now to support your prejudgements.

 

You need to able to analyse stats for what they are and use critical thinking, to put into perspective.....

.......A knowledge of road design applied to the mods on that stretch of road will give enough evidence to conclude that ot is in no way a contribution to road safety on Samui.

I'm well aware of the WHO assessments on drink drive and they actually support everything I've posted.. your comments ... stating the obvious .... on alcohol suggest you do not really understand either the papers themselves or my comments or even what levels of alcohol effect driving.....including your own?

You probably aren't aware of the proportion of pedestrians killed on thet roads are under the I.fluence of alcohol.

One of the reasons for this is that still there are no schemes of reliable statistics for Thailand, let alone Samui.

You have to options learn about the science of road safety and make reasoned deductions or just blindly blurt out assumptions and look for something you think agrees with you. Although your actually arguing with yourself

I know which is my preferred option....

 

[Samui Bodoh]

10 minutes ago, wilcopops said:

You are cherry picking now to support your prejudgements.

 

You need to able to analyse stats for what they are and use critical thinking, to put into perspective.....

.......A knowledge of road design applied to the mods on that stretch of road will give enough evidence to conclude that ot is in no way a contribution to road safety on Samui.

I'm well aware of the WHO assessments on drink drive and they actually support everything I've posted.. your comments ... stating the obvious .... on alcohol suggest you do not really understand either the papers themselves or my comments or even what levels of alcohol effect driving.....including your own?

You probably aren't aware of the proportion of pedestrians killed on thet roads are under the I.fluence of alcohol.

One of the reasons for this is that still there are no schemes of reliable statistics for Thailand, let alone Samui.

You have to options learn about the science of road safety and make reasoned deductions or just blindly blurt out assumptions and look for something you think agrees with you. Although your actually arguing with yourself

I know which is my preferred option....

 

 

I bet you are great fun at parties...

 

 

[wilcopops]

13 hours ago, GalaxyMan said:

The easiest way to effectively control the speed would be to put significant speed bumps every 100m on the ring road. That would slow things down a lot and it would be a fairly inexpensive way of getting the job done.

Speed bumps are. A safety hazard and they damage cars runnIng gear.

[wilcopops]

9 hours ago, Samui Bodoh said:

 

I bet you are great fun at parties...

 

 

A rational and critical discussion about road safety is not a discussion I would engage in at a party....however I have seen many people clearly under the influence of alcohol spouting baseless assumptions about driving in Thailand whilst at parties.....I'm sorry to disappoint, but I'm not one of them.