Police move to scrap cash rewards for traffic fines

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Police move to scrap cash rewards for traffic fines

By The Nation 

 

 

The Royal Thai Police are considering stopping cash rewards for traffic police for collected traffic fines and will instead give them an overtime allowance, a senior police officer said on Saturday.

Pol Maj Gen Ekkarak Limsangkart, deputy Police Education Bureau commissioner who heads a panel in charge of amending traffic law, said the proposal has yet to be finalised by his committee before it will be put forward for endorsement by the national police chief.

Ekkarak said that at present a traffic policeman whose rank is below lieutenant colonel is entitled to a share of traffic fines up to Bt10,000 a month.

 

Ekkarak said his committee decided to stop giving cash rewards to traffic policemen and change to an overtime system of Bt50 per hour. A policeman will be entitled to no more than four hours of overtime pay a day, he added.

 

Currently, 50 per cent of traffic fines are sent to local administrations and five per cent is sent to the Finance Ministry as national revenue. Th remainder is shared among traffic police.

 

Under the new system, 45 per cent of the fines, which are now used as money rewards, would be sent to the Finance Ministry, giving the Royal Thai Police the option to seek it back for use in traffic management operations.

 

Ekkarat said his committee has yet to study whether a fund should be set up to manage the 45 per cent of fines to recovered by the Finance Ministry.

 

He said his panel would consider the issue on June 7.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30370380

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-05-31

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[Thaiwrath]

26 minutes ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

Police move to scrap cash rewards for traffic fines

It certainly won't stop the backhanders !

Edited June 1, 2019 by Thaiwrath

[Lowryderen]

Seen from the individual officers point of view, it means that they have to work up to 4 hour more pr day to achieve less payment than before, where they could score up to 10.000 extra in normal work hours. That's not going to sit well, and could open up for a whole lot more fines without receipt.

Edited June 1, 2019 by Lowryderen

[Tom1959]

????????????????

[RotBenz8888]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

Police move to scrap cash rewards for traffic fines

They'll continue to get lots of cash rewards...

[Justgrazing]

Bit of a risqué pose by the one on the left there ..

[davehowden]

Maybe they could just do the job they are already paid for !!

[PJPom]

Maybe a backwards step, I have always thought that a good policeman who gets off his a## and does his job and has the incentive to be paid more is useful. 200 baht for sitting around for an extra four hours may sound good but it does nothing to improve the safety on the roads.

I wish I was a policeman here, with the manner in which people drive I could go through many books of tickets per day, probably be able to employ a writer so I wouldn’t be distracted from stopping every rule breaker.

[PingRoundTheWorld]

3 hours ago, davehowden said:

Maybe they could just do the job they are already paid for !!

The entire problem is that they are barely paid, so they have to resort to "creative" ways to make extra money. Paying them to give out fines however does nothing for road safety as they ignore the worst offenders and go after easy prey.

[JAG]

4 hours ago, Justgrazing said:

Bit of a risqué pose by the one on the left there ..

Maybe, as a result in the cut in income this could mean, he is auditioning to moonlight in a "Village People" tribute band?

Edited June 1, 2019 by JAG

[sirineou]

5 hours ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

Currently, 50 per cent of traffic fines are sent to local administrations and five per cent is sent to the Finance Ministry as national revenue. Th remainder is shared among traffic police.

I find myself without words.

and for those who know me , know it's no small feat.

[glennb6]

" Currently, 50 per cent of traffic fines are sent to local administrations and five per cent is sent to the Finance Ministry as national revenue. Th remainder is shared among traffic police."

 

so that's saying that 50% is pretty much gravy graft for the local administrations to keep the system exactly as it is. the remaining 45% among traffic police likely with most of that going to the upper ranking police.

 

OTOH you could have a cops driving around giving tickys for anything and everything playing nanny in a police nanny state, still ignoring the dangerous violators but nailing the 'failure to signal lane change' offenders and such. more road block stops, more traffic cameras. All with fines and fees going exclusively to the state (thus enriching the high-up crooks). All hail and love Goldstein...

[wombat]

i see no good coming from this.
rule 101...don't mess with the rice bowl.

 

[topt]

Can someone explain the difference between the 3 cops in the picture - I see 3 different uniform colours (unless one has faded in the sun.......)?

[malibukid]

why don't they pay the cops more?  at the same time improve their training. 

[Sumarianson]

I crossed over a single white line because a truck was going so slow and causing a traffic jam. 500 baht straight to the police, no ticket issued. 100% for them. 

[dcnx]

Perhaps they won’t hide behind trucks and spring out on bikers on the highway while trying to grab their bike if they are no longer getting cash.

 

[observer90210]

Delicate issue !....many will get pissed off not getting their cash "reward incentives" through the official line. So how do you think  the street cops will proceed to make up the lacking revenue ? The country is already corrupt and this could lead to encourage the honest bobbies towards corruption. IMHO

 

Just pay the cops, pay all their equipment including their firearms and that would be a smarter commencement.

[ocddave]

So now only the top officers will partake in the spoils, nice.

[Ulic]

They need to speed up the process for the police officers. A combo camera, printer, handheld device with all the traffic offenses programmed into the device. Take a picture of the offender or his license, the vehicle license plate, punch in the offense, and the ticket gets printed on the spot. The tickets can be uploaded to the cloud in real time. Give the officers 20% of the take, fire the officers who take backhanders. Between redlight runner cameras at intersections and a robust issuing of tickets by traffic police the national debt could be cleared and the mia noi of the traffic officers would be well taken care of.

[chama]

On 6/1/2019 at 5:32 AM, Lowryderen said:

Seen from the individual officers point of view, it means that they have to work up to 4 hour more pr day to achieve less payment than before, where they could score up to 10.000 extra in normal work hours. That's not going to sit well, and could open up for a whole lot more fines without receipt.

Yep...tea money revenue is about to increase. The seniors bus t have felt their share wasn't large enough so they are creating a way to increase their cut. They are creative and it may take a bit to see how they are doing it but ultimately the goal is always the same.

[ThaiFelix]

So cash sales only from now on!

[ThaiFelix]

10 hours ago, malibukid said:

why don't they pay the cops more?  at the same time improve their training. 

It was explained to me some years back that if they were paid a decent wage they would just go home or to their favourite bar everyday.  By giving them a low wage it forces them out onto the streets and even if they are only taking back handers they are still upholding the law.   Thats the theory anyway.

[manhood]

To pay policemen a benefit for doing just their job is totally "dingdong". But well thats all that has to do with administration jobs. Rotten thai society!