Anti-buddhist Driving

[Tony Clifton]

I suffer from a severe form of Tourette syndrome, strangely enough, only while driving in Thailand.

[gharknes]

I understand that the Majority of Thai People are very Bhuddist but I think that goes out the windown when they get behind the steering wheel of a car. They are overly aggressive, take dangerous chances (even if they have twenty people piled in the back of the truck) and don't understand how to use their mirrors. My lastest example was when a truck tailgated me ( he had to be doing at least 140km/h) because I wasn't going fast enough or moved out of the way fast enough for him. He finally got around and skidded against my car. It turned out that he lived in the same little village complex that I did. We both got out and I pointed at my car to show him what he was done. I could then tell by his mannerisms and then by his breath that he had been drinking whiskey. I also saw that he had his wife and a little baby in the car. I began to insult him in the best Thai that I could for what he had done and that he was endangering his family. He proceed to gait up to me and place his hands on my shoulders...which is where I went off and proceed to choke the life out of him and throw him around. It took my wife's uncle and two other thais to pull me off him. I have lost a girlfriend and a good buddy to drunk drivers and the fact that this one did is so nonchalantly like (which is how drunkiness is viewed in this country, it seems) made my little demon come to forfront. I also called the police twice but they never showed up. That is the other thing: we all know that the police department is corrupt, just think of the money they could rake in if they tried to actually enforce traffic laws...stop speeders, traffic violations (not including having your helmet on when riding your bad motor scooter), ect. Are they just to lazy to work on being really corrupt? I was so made that this guy could have hurt my wife, did whack my car (have insurance for that) and could have killed his family that I just wanted to choke the life out of him. Doesn't Bhuddism also apply to driving? They wouldn't need all that Bhuddist iconology in their cars if they drive sensibly. Maybe one problem is the perception of driving. In the west, driving is a privledged that is earned through testing or classwork and can be taken away from you any time if you get stupid. Here, you can get a license to drive in hour, or so I have been told. I'm sorry to say that I really wanted to kill that guy for a few seconds...smelling that cheap whiskey on his breath.

interesting point you make about the police, I think the police tend to try and make their backhanders from us falangs and not Thais, in general I think that falangs tend to drive properly here in Thailand, aghereing to the rules of the road, my point is that enforcing general traffic laws here would net a substantial number of Thais and less falangs, they prefer to stop falangs

[cdnvic]

enforcing general traffic laws here would net a substantial number of Thais and less falangs, they prefer to stop falangs

I think you'd find that locals make up most of the backhanders, and traffic stops.

I know its easy to develop a mentality that the whole country's economy is based on our wallets, but in the great scheme of things our input is pretty insignificant.

[draggons]

A, probably drunk, driver wrote off my pick in BKK last night while the missus was taking some friends home. truck rolled three times due to the impact but the little <deleted> managed to leg it from the sceen as he thought he'd killed them. All of them in hospital 1 very serious. Thankfully no one has been killed. Hope that the police can find the little <deleted>, I'll love five minutes alone with him.

Some Thai drivers are f*****g lunitics!!!!!!!

[toptuan]

A, probably drunk, driver wrote off my pick in BKK last night while the missus was taking some friends home. truck rolled three times due to the impact but the little <deleted> managed to leg it from the sceen as he thought he'd killed them. All of them in hospital 1 very serious. Thankfully no one has been killed. Hope that the police can find the little <deleted>, I'll love five minutes alone with him.

Some Thai drivers are f*****g lunitics!!!!!!!

I'd like to understand the whole story. What does "wrote off my pick" mean?

[November Rain]

A, probably drunk, driver wrote off my pick in BKK last night while the missus was taking some friends home. truck rolled three times due to the impact but the little <deleted> managed to leg it from the sceen as he thought he'd killed them. All of them in hospital 1 very serious. Thankfully no one has been killed. Hope that the police can find the little <deleted>, I'll love five minutes alone with him.

Some Thai drivers are f*****g lunitics!!!!!!!

I'd like to understand the whole story. What does "wrote off my pick" mean?

Wrote off (destroyed) his pick-up truck.

I'm so sorry to hear about your wife & her friends, draggons. Wishing them a speedy recovery.

[bonobo]

I am continually amazed at how Thai people, who are generally so nice and polite in most ways, change as soon as they get behind the wheel. It is as if the cocoon of metal gives them free reign to let all their aggression out.

I get rather pissed when I am in line waiting to turn right, waiting for several green lights sometimes, and then someone decides he doesn't need to wait and drives up, cutting off everyone else, and keeping them from turning when the light turns green. Or the idiots who get on your bumper at 120 km/hr because they want to go 125. Or the ones who go the wrong way because the u-turn is too far ahead. And so on.

I spent Christmas of 2005 in Thailand before going off to Iraq for a year.  I was going to a party and had to make a right turn. I waited until the oncoming traffic was clear, then started my turn only to have a motorcycle try to pass me on the right, smacking into my car and breaking his foot.  From the position of the bike on the road and the dent in my door, it was obvious he hit me while I was perpendicular to him and in the oncoming lane.

When the cop got there, he told the bike rider that he could tell the bike driver tried to pass me on the right. After a few mintutes he found out that the bike driver had no license, and not too surprisingly, no insurance. So he asked me, and yes, I had both. So now suddenly, it was my fault

 He said that if it was my fault, the insurance would take care of it.  So I got

a ticket for making a right turn from the left-hand lane. I took a photo showing that making such a turn was impossible as the left hand lane was f

ll of parked cars, but that made no difference.

I have to drive in Thailand to get to work. But excpeting for maybe Egypt, this has got to be the toughest, most frustrating place in which to get behind the wheel.

[draggons]

Thanks NR.

The Whole story. Some drunk twenry odd year old tried to undertake my wife at aprox 140kph realised he didn't have the room to do so and tried to cut to the other side to over take but missjudged it and ran under the nearside quarter behind the rear wheel causing the pick up to spin and roll three times!!!

[raro]

Driving back to Pattaya from Bangkok the other day, a mini van from some travel agency cut me short on the high way. One of those many incidents where they overtake on the left side and squeeze into the safety gap in front of me. I usually "close the door" that they cannot sqeeze in, but that driver was up for a crash.

I called the company's phone number on the back of his van and complained. Got my camera out, overtook the van at the next occasion and shot a picture with my hand reaching out of the window. At that moment, the driver was already slowing down a lot, talking on his mobile phone.

Not that this will change much, but if a driver receives a certain number of complaints his job will be in danger and this might make him rethink. And if not, he'll be out of job and off the road.

[penguin]

Maybe it would be a good thing if speed cameras and more police were put on the roads and more fines and banning applied.

The problem with most speed cameras is that each cartridge has only enough film to snap 100 offenders so the operator would need to be reloading every couple of minutes.

[jeffrosner]

On the night before my wedding we hired a song-tel (pickup truck with seats) to bring my family and some of my wife's family out to a seafood restaurant by the beach.

About half way there we started turning around and my father in law (who was sitting upfront with the driver) said "Maybe we should just go back and get some food near the hotel".

We didn't understand why and were a bit put out seeing as we were all looking forward to this seafood place. So we all said "no, no let's keep going". At which point the truck pulled over and there was thai discussion going on.

Turns out the driver was total piss drunk and could hardly walk. My family were horrified that this bloke had turned up drunk to drive around a large group of people in his truck.

We had to flag down another song-tel in order to get the restaurant.

The drunk guy left with half of the agreed price...

I come from Nevada. In the day, we would have made him dig his own hole and then covered him up alive. I can't believe you paid him.

JR

[raro]

Thailan is a somewhat civilized country....

/edit: I wouldn't have paid him either...

Edited April 1, 2007 by raro