Drivers In Thailand

[Martin]

Sometimes, in black moments, I feel that there will soon be only two sorts of drivers in Thailand. 'The Immensely Excellent, and lucky' will form one category and 'Idiots' will form the other one. All others will have been killed off by the idiots.

High up Highway 2, I see big tankers etc that survive day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. There must be an element of luck involved, but only as an addition to exceptional driving ability. How do Shell, Coca Cola, Siam Cement etc get these really good drivers?. Have they some way of selecting them from many, many applicants or do they train them up, by some apprenticeship system?. If someone knows, please tell me.

I have made the topic broad enough to encompass a lot that might help farang newcomers to survive (and us older hands to go on surviving). It arose from Tip of the Day, today. 'Don't give finger. You may get shot', and 'A flash of the headlights means the opposite here to its meaning in UK'.

[thaihome]

The flashing of headlights when passing is meant to say “It’s going to be close if I get back to my side in time, so you need to be prepared to take evasive action.” If flashed at you when not passing it means there is a police roadblock up ahead.

I have driven pretty extensively in Thailand, and even though they drive on the wrong side , I don’t really have a problem. Though it is different then driving in the US (or any western country, I expect), it is not really hard; you just have to pay more attention. Often it is fairly amusing.

No worse, and sometimes better, then most other Asian countries.

TH

[Axel]

...and even though they drive on the wrong side , I don’t really have a problem. Though it is different then driving in the US (or any western country, I expect

I feel they drive like at home, i.e. the slow traffic on the right side (yes I know, it is the fast lane) and the faster overtaking on the left.

City traffic is very easy. The bigger car has the right of way. The lines in the middle and the double white line should allways be kept in the middle of your car to have your bearings.

When you reach a crossing with a green signal, slow down or stop to make sure you do not hit somebody crossing at red light.

Now is that so difficult?

[Martin]

Nice one, Axel.

Spot on, TH. Pay more attention, and it can be just fairly amusing. Here is an excerpt from my last Christmas letter to family and friends:

"The Thai people, and the climate, make this a really pleasant place in which to spend retirement. Thais are so calm and easy-going. They get through life without rushing and you never see a frown. They just smile and amble. (Though I am told that the name of one of their particular smiles translates as “I-am-smiling-at-the-thought-of-how-nice-it-would-be-if-you-just-dropped-dead” !!). Many Westerners who are sent by their companies to work here find that the Thai congenital inability to rush is a bit frustrating. But we retirees can be more tolerant. However, I must admit that my tolerant smile was a bit forced the other day when I met a Thai bus. The driver had taken his bus across to the other side of the dual carriageway to get fuel and, rather than go back a mile to U-turn onto his own carriageway, he and his bus were trundling towards me down my side of the highway. No problem---this former fast aggressive Western driver is now a slow defensive Eastern one and I eased over onto the hard shoulder, murmuring as a mantra the Tourist Authority slogan (“Amazing Thailand”, “Amazing Thailand”). I may have been overdoing the tolerance though, as Thong’s remarks sounded quite imprecatory and she even shook her fist at him. When I asked for a translation of what she had said, I was reminded that she had learnt her English when she worked in the laundry at the American Air Force Base!. The bus driver would probably have thought that Thong’s reaction was a bit out of line----after all, he had put on his headlights to draw attention to what he was doing!! "

Compared to other Asian countries that I have visited, Thailand's truck drivers rank second only to their Nepal counterparts.

A few comments on some Asian countries:

Singapore: the land of high-performance cars with low-performance drivers. Place of the most boring motoring in the world. Other countries have a lot of boring motoring, but you can find some interesting routes. Nary a one in Singapore.

Indonesia: my most enduring memory is from a tour of Sumatra on a little coach. It is of my late wife's voice saying plaintively: "Can I open my eyes again now?".

The memory endures because it happened so many times.

Peninsular Malaysia: the land where pole trucks, laden with huge trees, overtake by going up the hard shoulder. Or should that be 'undertake'?.

Bangladesh: the land of "Fix 'Em Where They Fail". I travelled the length and breadth and saw a lot of breakdowns, but never a tow truck. I saw the engine of a c.1942 Canadian Ford truck being removed to be taken to town for a bit of repair, (piston rod through the side). Three days later, the truck was still there, blocking one lane of the highway. This happens up here, but only blocking the hard shoulder. Most of the trucks in Bangladesh are ex-military; either left by the Brits in 1945, or captured from the West Pakistanis in 1971. But they keep them rolling.

Nepal: some of the worst roads, but most considerate bus and truck drivers, that I have ever come across.

[Up2U]

I have driven pretty extensively in Thailand, and even though they drive on the wrong side

It's simple :

Left is right and right is wrong.

(Big mess-up in Sweden, when they decided to change from correct driving habits to American driving habits in the '60s)(But not as bad as in Nigeria, which followed in the eighties - the government had seen the problem in Sweden, so came up with a simple solution - lorries and buses changed over three days before the official date for cars, so that everyone could get used to the new road rules.)

Probably apocryphal, but when I worked there a few years later, I was tempted to believe it.

[stroll]

"High up Highway 2, I see big tankers etc that survive day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. There must be an element of luck involved, but only as an addition to exceptional driving ability. How do Shell, Coca Cola, Siam Cement etc get these really good drivers?. Have they some way of selecting them from many, many applicants or do they train them up, by some apprenticeship system?. If someone knows, please tell me."

Since the ban of Amphetamine for lorry drivers is strictly enforced, they sleep in the 'cockpit' and the truck goes straight, avoiding the swerving associated with drunk driving.

[Mai Pai]

You need 3 things to drive in Thailand.

A car that you won't be upset if it is bumped, dinged, or scratched

A Thai spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend to tell you what you are doing wrong

A very large life insurance policy (unknown to the spouse above)

[stroll]

What good would the life insurance do?

I suggest carrying a bundle of 100 Bt notes for 'road tolls' instead.

[Tornado]

to answer the thread title - drivers in Thailand are crap!

I noticed now I have a "Phuket Shooting Range" sticker on the back of my window, I can give the finger, yell and abuse people and get know response

Having mirror glass all around also helps as they dont know who is in the car.

[stroll]

Wasn't there a thread on somebody having a beeping proximity alarm installed in his car in here not long ago?

Maybe this could be converted to work on the same principle as the electric fly zzzapper?

[Davidcharles]

When I yell "Stupid Baaaaad" at someone who has nearly killed me on my Motorbike, my Girlfriend admonishes me "You must not drive with bad heart!".

Everyone breaks all the (if there are any) Rules of the road in LOS, all of the time, so they don't seem to suffer from Road Rage like we do in UK, when some fool drives dangerously.

Funny though isn't it, how you start to drive in the same way, after a while....

Actually, I don't know what is worse, the dangerous, stupid driving, or the clouds of black smoke that pours out of so many vehicles......?

[fatter than harry]

Here's another reason whilst I'll be staying single!

I have two types of driving mode, early and late.

If I'm early for meetings / appointments / other stuff, which is perhaps 10% of the time then I'm just cool pootling along in the Thai manner, listening to my Dixie Chicks / Elton John / Black eyed peas (quite like it now tapes)

The remainder of the time I'll be late then I'm like a lipo juiced Michael Scumacher sans the red overalls, whats wierd is that I'm a semi-polite cusser and a non-agressive-gesticulator, when I yell its to myself and its stuff like 'It's a matter of logistics!' and 'Sir, you appear to have left your handbrake on!' as opposed to out and out swearing.

My pet hates:

dudes having a chat on motorbikes side by side for ages (what can they be talking about for that long?!! if they're saying "Mate! change of plan! we're going to the 7-11 first" thats bloody great, but its not like that, oh no.....and how can they hear each other?! the converstaion must take so long because it goes something like "Mate, do you know the liverpool score?" "Alai na?!" "I said, do you know the liverpool score?" "Alai na?!" "the liverpool score, do you know it?" "Alai na?!" "I said, do you know the liverpool score?" Alai na?!" etc)

Super dooper overly long breakers when turning left - picky I know, but you get nose to tail behind a guy who is turning left, say into a driveway or garage and he gets down to about 2km an hour and there's still 60 yards to go.....why why! (thats where the handbrake line comes in)

I just spent a week in Japan (Looking for Yohan's Godzilla proof volcano hideout) and upon my return I found that I was Thai-rusty and nearly crashed about 13 times in an hour (although looking back I later realised that it was because I was practising the Roger Moore eyebrow raise in the rear view mirror - I just can't nail that down! If you were behind me I would have looked like this and I apologise!)

[ka12345]

I installed the same 140db air horn that the mad buses have and a compressor for it in my car along with a switch for selecting the normal horn (in city traffic) and the 140db thing (for highway traffic). Very efficient...

[maerim]

Since the ban of Amphetamine for lorry drivers is strictly enforced, they sleep in the 'cockpit' and the truck goes straight, avoiding the swerving associated with drunk driving.

I agree as I was in a bus smash years ago with a wide awake drunk at the wheel.

May you live in interesting times.

[JimGant]

Driving a car on the left side of the road actually wasn't too much of a learning experience. But my car is an automatic transmission -- being nonambidextrous (is that a word?), I'm not really sure I could drive a stick shift while simultaneously weaving in and out of kamikaze traffic.

On the highway, I find staying in the right (fast) lane is the safest way to go. Yeah, you gotta watch your six for mach 2 macho types, then get over -- but this seems to be a lot safer than dodging all the Ray Charles types merging, or the slow food carts, or AT NIGHT, all the motorcycles trying to save electricity. But the main problem with right lane travel (cops have never been a problem) is on the older highways where the u-turn cutouts have NO indentation! Such is the case around Chiang Mai anyways, and watching out for protruding butts of turning cars can really get your attention.

The real eye opener, however, was my first time on the highway with a motorcycle. Staying left, natch, and doing my best to stay on the hard shoulder. Then, first time out, I see an approaching motorcycle on the hard shoulder. Almost disaster, until I figured out (somehow) that I was to pass to the RIGHT. So, I learned, driving on the shoulder has its own rules-of-the-road.

But, it's actually kind of fun anticipating all the nuances of driving in Thailand. I'm sure most of the close calls have been due to my lack of experience with Thai driving quirks -- but the great thing is that my screw-ups have not been met with even a horn or finger, let alone a .38, Stateside fashion.

Nice.

[thaihome]

Driving a car on the left side of the road actually wasn't too much of a learning experience. But my car is an automatic transmission -- being nonambidextrous (is that a word?), I'm not really sure I could drive a stick shift while simultaneously weaving in and out of kamikaze traffic.

My first experience with driving left handed was in Singapore and was also with an automatic. That did make it much easier to adjust. Later the car in Malaysia was also an automatic. The first car I was assigned in Thailand was a manual. After almost 2 years of driving on the left to that point, it was really not a problem.

I do admit that even to this day, some 6 years later, I still occasionally turn on wipers when signalling for a turn.

So, I learned, driving on the shoulder has its own rules-of-the-road.

This is so true, there is a whole different driving culture for the shoulder drivers.

All I can say about China is company does not allow us to drive in China; I have never heard any expat argue with this policy.

Funny part about China is this is the first place in Asia I have seen people actually come to blows at the scene of a collision. You see crashes almost every day here, and at least half of them have people fighting, or least grabbing and pushing at each other. In almost 2 years here I have seen 5 dead bodies laying in the road, usually a motorcycle or bicycle driver under a truck or car. Not much fighting at these scenes.

TH

[Martin]

Yes, Jim, I think 'driving on the shoulder' is a sub-topic in its own right.

My experience of it comes from riding a bike on the shoulder.

After reaming out another coronary artery for me, my cardiologist in Khon Kaen prescribed 'take exercise' as well as a daily diet of 10 pills (of 5 different varieties). So I try to do 20 km on my wife's shopping-basket bicycle every day.

In order to get changes of route, I have to go up the highway for some distance and then make a circuit of some different bit of 'ban nork' and come back along the highway.

I meet 'em all; motor bikes, rice tractors, little farm lorries (with the same little diesel engine that the rice tractors use), buffaloes, saamlors, pickups loaded with water-melons, and various vendors using a sidecar attached to a motor bike.

I try to keep left and make them be the one to judge whether it is safe to 'trespass' on the highway. After all they can see the traffic that is coming and I can't (as the wife's bike doesn't have any mirrors).

But sometimes my resolute sticking to the left doesn't work.

So I stop face-to-face with them and do the old big smile and "Sawasdee" bit, turn the bike across the hard shoulder, have a really good look at what is coming up, and carry on round them. I am not out to risk my life just to save them a bit of time.

I find the worst thing is motor bikes and saamlors that come up behind and pass me, just inches away, without warning. When I am mentally miles away (possibly thinking of some posting that I ought to do for thaivisa.com on "What do you love about Thailand?" about something I have seen that day) those overtakers really make me jump.

[organic]

How do Shell, Coca Cola, Siam Cement etc get these really good drivers?.

On my way down to Haad Yai a couple of months ago I spotted the remains of a Coca Cola lorry, which the driver had apparently made somersault - it was lying on it's back facing almost the opposite direction to the traffic. Must take some doing, I doubt those things are very aerodynamic.

[Martin]

To ka12345. Please tell us how you got the air horn.

Does the compressor work off the battery?.

I am keen to have one for the car.

Thanks

[Johpa]

Driving a car on the left side of the road actually wasn't too much of a learning experience. But my car is an automatic transmission -- being nonambidextrous (is that a word?), I'm not really sure I could drive a stick shift while simultaneously weaving in and out of kamikaze traffic.

I did not find it that difficult to adjust to driving on the left side and I found that shifting with the right hand was another skill that actually came fairly quickly. I have driven quite a bit in Thailand up north. There seems to be some logic to the driving yet I can't quite define all the rules. One rule that I do know is that when traveling a two lane highway and one sees a bus or truck approaching then one must always assume that an identical vehicle is directly behind the oncoming vehicle and the driver is about to pull into your lane to begin to pass. Sort of like those pesky Mig fighters in the movie "Top Gun" where first only one plane appears on the radar but then voila, there is another hidden behind it. As long as you are thinking in this specific direction at the moment then instinct will kick in to save you and your vehicle while you relish the near death experience for posterity.

I use to commute to my teaching job everyday on such a highway, a highway that is now four lane divided. For awhile I had a small bag of fishing weights and I would toss a small weight at the oncoming windshield. But eventually I began to accept the inevitable and was always prepared to get intimate with shoulders of both the hard and soft persuasion.

Fortunately, the only incident that caused me injury was on my motorcycle and was the result of a freaking mutt. This little canine decided to sit directly in front of me path and I had to make a very quick decision whether to try to cut the dog in half and risk doing and end over end flip with Thai drivers behind me or to make a very quick maneuver to the shoulder which I knew would cause the bike to go down. for whatever reason, most probably the recent paralysis of another biker from a head on collision with a canine, I went to the shoulder and left a small skid mark on my left side. Luckily, while I was trying to make that decision, instinct had taken over and I had been braking hard reducing forward speed enough to lessen the injury.

The other interesting aspect to driving in Thailand is driving Thai cars that have not been maintained. In fact, maintenance seems to be a concept that does not exists in Thai culture. Once I was given my brother-in-laws car to drive back to our house. It was not a pleasant drive. After a difficult 10 km I told my wife that the car needed new brakes, tightened steering, and a new clutch. She was skeptical that I could make such critical judgements since I was not a mechanic and had not even opened up the hood. Later that week they took the car to a mechanic who told them exactly what I had told them. They now think I am a mechanical genius.

[JimGant]

meet 'em all; motor bikes, rice tractors, little farm lorries (with the same little diesel engine that the rice tractors use), buffaloes, saamlors, pickups loaded with water-melons, and various vendors using a sidecar attached to a motor bike.

Ah, but it's all part of the charm

[eric1000]

Sometimes, in black moments, I feel that there will soon be only two sorts of drivers in Thailand. 'The Immensely Excellent, and lucky' will form one category and 'Idiots' will form the other one. All others will have been killed off by the idiots.

the most lunatic move is when they pull out at a T section without checking or allowing for cars coming from the right !

they blindly just driveout !

[Martin]

Yes,chaps! It was after ruminating on the mixture of the charm(Johpa), the relishing of surviving a near-death incident (Jim Gant), and the local reaction to a horrific accident when a load of sugar cane pulled out right in the path of a 'VIP' high speed air con bus coming up from Bangkok, that caused me to put up the topic.

I don't know the exact details of how sugar-cane lorry and bus ended up twenty yards off the highway with many fatalities and casualties with horrific injuries. I can imagine a possible scenario. The sugar-cane truck approaching the junction where the unpaved road meets the highway, and it is to turn left. A very gingerly turn to the left starting to bring round the top-heavy truck. A slight dip in the bed of the unpaved road (of only a couple of inches). The load threatening to turn the truck on its side (as so often happens as the trucks lurch very slowly off the fields). Or maybe any tire on the offside of the truck giving up at that moment. The truck driver instinctively letting the steering straighten up. The truck coming across right in front of the bus.

The locals were full of what an evil truck that one was. A few years back it was involved in a bad accident, repaired and re-bodied and sold on, then another bad accident when it was stationary and being loaded with sugar in a field, and then this accident. My own thoughts had been much more on 'speed of bus' (there is no way they can keep to their schedule and obey the speed limit) and the failure to 'give right of way'. But the locals didn't seem to blame either driver.

Since then I have watched very closely. It suddenly dawned on me just how skilful these drivers are, within the limits of what they can control. But what they can't control (the schedule imposed by the bus company management, and the overloading that is insisted on by the haulage boss, and the lunacy of the idiot in his pickup who wanders out, as eric 1000 says) has them depending on having good luck as well as skill.

The petrol tankers and the soft-drinks artics seem to be allowed more time to complete their journeys than the buses (or the fastest of all, which are the newspaper trucks---the Formula One Siplors). And these tankers and artics seem to take scheduled rest stops, as if they are tachometered.

Are the multinationals importing Western road-transport rules?. And 'Heavy Goods Vehicle' driver training? I was hoping someone might know.

[john b good]

If this thread is about "Thai" drivers I will give you my opinion (and I have driven quite a few km's in both LH and RH drive cars in many countries: read, 2.0 million ++plus) Thais are close to being the worst, most stupid, brain dead, incompetent drivers that you will encounter anywhere in the world.

Furthermore they are probably the most ignorant, inconsiderate and selfish drivers that you might encounter anywhere in the world.

If you put all the Thai drivers together you would find it difficult to find sufficient brain matter to create a kindergarten age childs "drivers IQ" in a western country.

Why is it do you think that Thailand has never produced a driver of any consequence who has made it on the world scene (apart from being involved in record breaking accidents with mega fatalities)

Almost every other country (Scandinavia, Australia, NZ, US, UK, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Spain etc) has produced / has had drivers who have demonstrated their excellance. (F1 world champions, Indy, world rally champions etc., Thailand can't even produce a go cart driver of any note)

Pardon the pun but it is not by accident that Thai drivers never have / never will rate..............if cremations weren't the order of the day in Thailand there would not be sufficient land to bury Thai drivers who have come unstuck.

[Martin]

john b good has given a good description of those who form my category "Idiots".

However, I was hoping to be enlightened on how the professional drivers survive despite all the idiots who must give them near-death experiences several times a week.

I thought getting that enlightment might give us all some tips on how we might survive.

I want to go on enjoying the 'charm' for a long time yet, not be killed by it!!!

[stroll]

1.Johnbgood:

Thailand has, as mentioned already, excellent Lorry drivers, but I have not seen a world championship for overloaded 16 tonners yet. The others aren't all that bad either, in my experience and opinion. Use the 'search' to see further arguments either way in past threads on the topic.

2.Martin:

Cultural difference. For survival, it doesn't matter how good a driver one is, but how powerful the amulet one carries.

[tuky]

I find driving in Thailand an absolute pleasure, as would you all if you spent a day driving/being driven around where I am now. And there are worse places than here too.

Thailand has it's moments but is a long way from being-

If this thread is about "Thai" drivers I will give you my opinion (and I have driven quite a few km's in both LH and RH drive cars in many countries: read, 2.0 million ++plus) Thais are close to being the worst, most stupid, brain dead, incompetent drivers that you will encounter anywhere in the world.

bah!

[Axel]

Actually, I do like to drive here and been doing this since 1973.

Different? Yes! Stupid? Come on.

Staying in your lane, putting the automatic speed control at 55 mph and enjoying your six-pack, that must be hard brain work.

[p1p]

Thais are close to being the worst, most stupid, brain dead, incompetent drivers that you will encounter anywhere in the world.

Furthermore they are probably the most ignorant, inconsiderate and selfish drivers that you might encounter anywhere in the world.

If you put all the Thai drivers together you would find it difficult to find sufficient brain matter to create a kindergarten age childs "drivers IQ" in a western country.

I can not5 help but agree with much of john b good's post. Thai drivers have no training, and the going rate of under 500 Baht for a licence (without taking a test) is hardly likely to improve matters.

I have never had to adjust to driving on the correct side of the road, so can not comment on troubles faced by those who have to adjust over from the "wrong" side! However I have various high level advanced driving and biking qualifications from the UK and, despite training and 30-40 years experience, I still find it hard to cope with the idiots on the road here.

Don't you just love those old, beaten up pickups with no lights, driven at 15Kmph by a buffalo with a farmer or two in the back. They always have to sit either in the right-hand, fast lane; or they follow the white lines.

Thai roundabouts amaze me. Why do the people on the roundabout have to give way to those wanting to enter. Astounding snarl-ups occur constantly.

Two accidents I have been involved in over the last five years involved motorcycles. On one occasion I was turning right at some traffic lights when I was rammed by a motorcycle coming up at speed on the inside of an articulated truck and crashing a red light. The policeman controlling the lights at the scene insisted I was in the wrong because I should have seen the idiot coming.

On another occasion a pair of drunks on a bike swerved straight in front of my wife and I on my ZZR1100, (going no more than 30kmph). We could not miss them and I had to lay the bike down. They just picked up and rode off into the sunset. My wife forced the sale of my bike!

Just two days ago, on Thapae Road, Chiang Mai, I stopped at a red pedestrian light to allow an old lady to cross. She passed the left hand lane and the traffic there moved off. Meanwhile the traffic on the right never stopped and I eventually had to get out of the car to help her to finish crossing to the other side. Horns blaring the while behind my car.

I must say I find the drivers in Chiang Mai to be the worst and most selfish of all. Chiang Mai police do nothing except collect tea money from motorcyclists without helmets or lights on. In Isarn Central or Southern regions, you stand a chance of being stopped if you transgress, not in Chiang Mai.

Yes, I do agree with john b good's sentiments.

[Davidcharles]

While I was waiting for my Taxi to arrive to take me to the Airport the other day,

I saw a Lorry spewing out clouds of exaust smoke, and next to it, a little guy on a motorbike, without a helmet on.

A Cop walked-up and admonished the motorcyclist. Ignoring the Carbon Monoxide that was poisoning everyone around, INCLUDING HIM!.

Words fail me....................