Thai Parking

[grtaylor]

The people who get me really p*ssed of are the bar/shop/restaurant owners who say you can't park in front of their premises. They do not, after all, own the road - it is public!

What really gets me to absolute screaming point is that they wait until you have parked the car, turned off the engine, got out of the car and locked the door, before they say it!!!!!

G

[Neeranam]

The people who get me really p*ssed of are the bar/shop/restaurant owners who say you can't park in front of their premises. They do not, after all, own the road - it is public!

What really gets me to absolute screaming point is that they wait until you have parked the car, turned off the engine, got out of the car and locked the door, before they say it!!!!!

G

Ignore them and walk away, or pretend you can't understand them. Alternatively shout "baep dieow na khrap" and walk away.

[markuk]

its just another general frustration of living here.

[WaiWai]

It is interesting, considering that Thai society would seem to tend more to co-operative (rather than individualistic) behaviour. However this general disposition is contradicted somewhat by the caste-like system and, possibly, a tendency to make a strong distinction between "in-group" (family, friends and those encountered frequently in the course of daily life) and "other"; both permitting lack of empathy toward strangers. That lack is, I think, often swiftly remedied once it is perceived as such. (Just throwing out speculation here; have not been here long enough to do anything else.)

Perhaps many car drivers here did not grow up with cars and strictly enforced road & parking rules in the way that many farangs did, and thus approach their use in a rather more easy-going manner. Perhaps there's not been time for car-related etiquette to become established.

Perhaps people just behave differently with cars than they do in other, more personal, settings.

Don't wish to take this off track, but am curious about this remark :

I don't think it's an IQ issue. There was a study done (I think it's called the Bell Curve) and it shows that SE Asians score more than Caucasions. If you look into it there some interesting observations of the people at the bottom end.

Can anyone direct us to this study ? I recall that reports last year suggested rather differently (for whatever such studies may be worth.)

See, for e.g., the following extract from The Nation, July 19, 2006 :

Thai children's IQ average low

The average intelligence quotient (IQ) of Thai children, somewhere between 87 and 88 points, remains in the "low average" category when ranked internationally, Vice Minister for Education Watchara Phanchet said on Wednesday.

He said this at a seminar on how to make children smart, and cited a survey conducted in 2002 as the source of his information.

"We have to develop children both intellectually and physically because they are our country's future," Watchara said.

He was speaking to more than 800 educators, health professionals, parents and representatives of a network for disadvantaged children at the seminar held by the Mental Health Department's Rajanukul Institute.

The 2002 survey found that only 80 per cent of children under five years old had normal visual, muscular and touchperception development, he said. It also found that the average IQ of children between six and 12 was 87 points.

The average IQ for children between 13 and 18 was 88 IQ points, the study found.

In a 2001 survey, children from six to 12 were found to have low levels of patience, discipline, concentration and selfreliance, while those between 13 and 18 had insufficient creativity, analytical ability, conscience, problemsolving skills and emotional control.

Watchara said these problems were the result of parents leaving teachers in charge of their children's development. Teachers are not trained to maximise children's potential at the right age, he said.

"We plan to raise Thai children's [average] IQ to at least 100 by 2008," he said.

Mental Health Department chief ML Somchai Chakraphan said those with IQs in the 70 to 79 point range were in a borderline group as an IQ below 70 points signalled mental disability.

[Furbie]

...It took my wife many years of living in the UK to appreciate good safe driving and now living back here all I have heard her say for the last twenty years is - Stupid Thai drivers, don't they understand safety and responsibilty - and she is Thai !

This made me laugh and brought back a memory of the Thai GF I had who learned how to drive in the States while living with family there during her high school years. Whenever I was in the car with her she would say "stupid Thais" whenever an incident occurred - shall we say which lacked the use of common sense. Walking behind the car while she was backing up, parking so close to her car door she could not open it, motorcyles being well, motorcycles...on and on. It just made me chuckle to hear a Thai say it.

In reality, how many of us would not double park, park in front of the store or whatever if a ticket was not a real option. My last time in NYC, I parked illegally in front of the Thai Consulate and it was the consulate officer who said park there, and I almost got a ###### ticket too!

[WaiWai]

Just saw this on a website called thaiworldview.com, evidently written by a Thai :

ไม่แยแส or "MAI YAE SAE" means indifference.

Thai drivers behavior (it frequently happens to see a motorcycle, tuk-tuk or even cars driving in the wrong way in order to do a detour) and dirty waterfalls filled of rubbish, broken bottles after a week-end are two examples of Thai indifference.

[Gumballl]

It certainly doesn't happen where I'm from. Police are too quick to ticket any illegal parking.

By my place in BKK, I can't stand the parking on the sidewalk. All the time the shop owners park on the sidewalk since the street has no parking along it. I guess they could park in the sois next to the shops but that would be an extra 10 meter walk. The worst thing is that they leave no room for pedestrians to walk around.

Try to walk next to these cars with a key in your hand or even a ring on your finger. The car owner will learn very quick where not to park.

[WaiWai]

Not about parking, but an interesting statistic nonetheless :

"Over the past decade, statistics show Thailand has on average 3,500-4,000 public-bus accidents annually, with 2003 registering a record high of 4,509 cases. That means that there are 10 bus accidents, including minor ones, daily. According to research funded by the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, road accidents cause damage amounting to Bt8 billion per year.

Researcher Phichai said the situation had slightly improved in the past two years but the new concern was that accidents in the provinces were growing rapidly."

(from an article in The National about a recent bus crash.)