Reducing fatality on roads

[AustinRacing]

Getting motorists to behave seems very hard for reasons known to most  people. Let’s capitalize on the love of Thais with their phones. Create an app that allows you to photograph/short video of an infringement via dash cam or passenger (not driver) or pedestrian. It uploads to the relevant authority. In case of successful prosecution (paid fine) you get a percentage of the proceeds via your account. Less reliant on police, a source of income without working a win win for all. So simple yet faultless solution!

Edited April 26, 2021 by AustinRacing
Grammar

[CharlieH]

Isnt that exactly what happens now thanks to Line / facebook/ Tiktok etc but no payment.

 

The ONLY real way is to ensure proper driver training, and more importantly to have real active law enforcement and real consequences to an action, not stupid penny fines.

[northsouthdevide]

A very wise bar fly once said to me that the only way to reduce road deaths in Thailand, would be to dig up all the roads.

[DavisH]

80% of road deaths are those riding motor bikes - some some self inflicted and some caused by other vehicles. There's no simple solution - more licencing (over 1m riders don't have a licence), better training, better law enforcement (esp. wearing helmets), etc. 

[richard_smith237]

No one likes a Grass !!!!

 

 

Policing is ineffective because the Police are not encouraged to make their policing effective.

Once that issue is handled correctly the rest falls into place. 

 

 

[mrfill]

This sort of thing has been tried before. They were called Blockleiters then.

 

Didn't work out too well though...

[steve187]

i think the road casualty problem stems from 3 avenues

1 - drivers, drunk driving, poor eyesight, not observing rules, no helmets, no lights, driving against the flow of traffic, not looking when entering bigger road, driving tired, etc. and lack of training/licences

2 lack of enforcement both by the police and the applicable government bodies

3 poor road design and markings, (the u turn system is so dangerous, slower moving vehicle having to cross lanes of traffic to use, both directions of traffic using the same u turn gap, which blocks the view of drivers, no acceleration lane once you re-join the road) roundabouts, does any Thai driver know the rues. 

as i was instructed on Police advanced driving courses 'think every other person on the road is trying their hardest to kill you, and don't ever become the 'meat' in the middle of 2 slices of bread

Edited April 28, 2021 by steve187

[sandyf]

45 minutes ago, steve187 said:

i think the road casualty problem stems from 3 avenues

1 - drivers, drunk driving, poor eyesight, not observing rules, no helmets, no lights, driving against the flow of traffic, not looking when entering bigger road, driving tired, etc. and lack of training/licences

2 lack of enforcement both by the police and the applicable government bodies

3 poor road design and markings, (the u turn system is so dangerous, slower moving vehicle having to cross lanes of traffic to use, both directions of traffic using the same u turn gap, which blocks the view of drivers, no acceleration lane once you re-join the road) roundabouts, does any Thai driver know the rues. 

as i was instructed on Police advanced driving courses 'think every other person on the road is trying their hardest to kill you, and don't ever become the 'meat' in the middle of 2 slices of bread

I would suggest you have left out an avenue, probably the most significant and the most difficult to address, personality trait. The Thais are inherently impatient, they always want to be first and will do what they want to get to the front of the queue. No amount of training or improvements is going to change that in the short term, it will only come as a generational evolvement. Stricter deterrents would help, the most effective being vehicle clamping for prolonged periods but very unlikely with the social perspective.

There has been significant improvements in the road infrastructure over the last 20 years but done little for the accident rate, cure and create.

As said one of the real danger areas is U turns. Between Chonburi and Bang Saen they have been working on an experimental arrangement for about 6 years now. The original concept was that vehicles could u turn behind a barrier without stopping, that failed because 2 or 3 vehicles tried to turn at the same time which meant none could exit safely. An exit barrier was introduced to restrict the turn to one vehicle, that continually gets adjusted as they try and accommodate vehicle length. Still work in progress, photo below, but like watching paint dry. All in all I am not going to see much change in my lifetime.

[NoshowJones]

On 4/26/2021 at 11:18 PM, richard_smith237 said:

No one likes a Grass !!!!

 

 

Policing is ineffective because the Police are not encouraged to make their policing effective.

Once that issue is handled correctly the rest falls into place. 

 

 

How many times have you passed a police station at the side of a highway and saw Highway patrol police cars parked there?

On Monday I was riding my motorbike on the 117 Highway from Nakhon Sawan near Phichit province and the police station on my right hand side had at least five highway patrol cars parked there, this would be about 1pm.

Why are these cars not being used? Are the drivers just passing the time in the station. or are they somewhere else, who knows?

If this is repeated in other police stations in Thailand, is it any wonder why the driving and riding are so bad, do they not have the manpower to operate these cars or what? I would find that hard to believe.

Or are they all waiting to escort some VIPs?

 

 

[colinneil]

Just now, possum1931 said:

How many times have you passed a police station at the side of a highway and saw Highway patrol police cars parked there?

On Monday I was riding my motorbike on the 117 Highway from Nakhon Sawan near Phichit province and the police station on my right hand side had at least five highway patrol cars parked there, this would be about 1pm.

Why are these cars not being used? Are the drivers just passing the time in the station. or are they somewhere else, who knows?

 

 

 

Possum me ole mate, surely you should know why the cars were parked up..... They were there because all the plod were inside counting their ill gotten gains from their morning scams.

[DUNROAMIN]

Good idea until somebody find out who reported them, then find youself looking down the barrel of 9mm glock.

[rwill]

Sorry, that is not the kind of world I want to live in.

[mr_lob]

On 4/26/2021 at 11:53 AM, northsouthdevide said:

A very wise bar fly once said to me that the only way to reduce road deaths in Thailand, would be to dig up all the roads.

Even if they returned to Ox and cart, there would still be brake failures

[canthai55]

All the 'death on the roads' stats are skewed - no breakdown as to what caused the death, or why.

Most are motorcycles, most are at night, most are due to excessive speed and intoxication.

To just throw out a total number means nothing.

Get some more data if you want to find out the causes, or it is just a guess.

[chilly07]

Perhaps a cctv replay of accidents running on a loop updated daily dressed up as a Thai soap would attract Thai 'drivers' including a commentary on responsibility and finger pointing line ups with drivers in balls and chain having their licences cut up and the fine extracted and if that doesn't work their vehicle being crushed. Thais would be unable to resist viewing and could vote for the best excuses eg I was asleep when the brakes failed and the telegraph pole/18 wheeler/bus/tree/house/mountain backed into me! 

[Liverpool Lou]

On 4/26/2021 at 11:18 PM, richard_smith237 said:

No one likes a Grass !!!!

Speak for yourself.  They're much more likeable than people who cause the death of others on the roads.

[Chongalulu]

48 minutes ago, canthai55 said:

All the 'death on the roads' stats are skewed - no breakdown as to what caused the death, or why.

Most are motorcycles, most are at night, most are due to excessive speed and intoxication.

To just throw out a total number means nothing.

Get some more data if you want to find out the causes, or it is just a guess.

The single underlying factor is them being clueless.

[canthai55]

53 minutes ago, nchuckle said:

The single underlying factor is them being clueless.

This not a Thai trait alone ...

Drive in Lagos - heck, drive in Vancouver !

No country has a monopoly on S4B drivers - seen plenty in the UK also, as well as The Continent

[RocketDog]

OP : instead of reiterating my personal opinion on why/how road carnage occurs and what could/should/must be done to prevent/punish such behavior I will respond to your post.

 

Such an app would have to approved or created by some branch or authority in the government. Given the typical fate of such proposals I firmly believe it could be easily scheduled to coincide with the imminent completion of the Thai moon orbit program now underway. 

 

Such an app would have to clearly show license plates and driver's pictures along with wide angle shots that capture all the victims thrown from the vehicles involved as well as the often large-scale damage done to buildings and other infrastructure. These are just technological issues however. 

 

Some method must be included by which offending vehicle speed and geolocation could be determined regardless of the relative speed of the device running the app. 

 

The person submitting the app must be guaranteed entry to a national witness protection program at government expense. Granted, this is a trivial cost so should not prove to be a barrier. 

 

Funding must be secured along with necessary equipment and personnel for reviewing the presumably HUGE amount of data submitted by the citizens eager to aid law enforcement and stop the ugly scourge of road death Thailand suffers(?) from. Training programs must be established for special judges who validate the offenses submitted by such reviewers. Again, a trivial issue no doubt. 

 

The government must be ready to compensate victims when accidents are shown to be directly related to poor road maintenance, hanging wires, poor or inadequate signage, etc. 

 

A committee must be established to set nationwide standards for brown envelope amounts and designated recipients for use by the accused who wish to avoid the embarrassment of prosecution for their verified offense. 

 

Other than these issues I see no problems with your proposal. 

 

Still, I like American comedian George Carlin's solution. Equip all vehicles with a dart launching apparatus under driver control. Each time offensive driving is noted, a dart is launched into the offending car. Police are authorized to fine or jail the driver of any vehicle having a number of darts over a certain limit. 

 

Given the general state of inattentive officers here, I expect most Thai vehicles would quickly appear more like pincushions (corona virus?) than cars. And of course there is always the problem of nocturnal dart thieves. I have no answer for that. 

 

Nonetheless I agree that both yours and Carlin's concepts bear serious deliberation. I'm sure other TVF members can expand on these basic ideas now that we've laid the groundwork. 

[connda]

There if virtually no enforcement here nor driver training. 
Cops are not in patrol cars enforcing moving violations which occur on Thai highways by the second. 
Drivers have no proper training: they don't understand "right-of-way", how to merge, how to accelerate from a stop, how to take their foot off the accelerator once up to speed, how to drive defensively, how to maintain a lane, and worse, many, many, many are highly aggressive and will speed, pass on blind corners and hills, will pull into oncoming traffic and expect those with right-of-way to get out of their way, fail to stop or even slow at stop signs, fail to even glace in the direction of oncoming traffic when entering a thoroughfare from a side road (especially motorcycles), run red lights, and the list goes on and on and on. 

Plus?  Cops who aren't at an active road block don't care.  On the highway near our home, cars, trucks, and motorcycles will drive down Highway 11 the wrong way to get to a side road 100 meters down the road, and to do this they virtually drive by a BIB patrol station on the highway.  Cops don't do a thing.  Not ever when roadblocks are up.  No enforcement, no responsibility.  No change.

Cops will never be trained as patrol officers in cars, and the public will never receive proper driver training as I believe that even the teachers in "Driving School" have no clue as how to drive safely.  And aggressive Thai drivers will never be tamed.  So............?
The carnage will continue unabated.

[connda]

2 minutes ago, connda said:

There if virtually no enforcement here nor driver training. 
Cops are not in patrol cars enforcing moving violations which occur on Thai highways by the second. 
Drivers have no proper training: they don't understand "right-of-way", how to merge, how to accelerate from a stop, how to take their foot off the accelerator once up to speed, how to drive defensively, how to maintain a lane, and worse, many, many, many are highly aggressive and will speed, pass on blind corners and hills, will pull into oncoming traffic and expect those with right-of-way to get out of their way, fail to stop or even slow at stop signs, fail to even glace in the direction of oncoming traffic when entering a thoroughfare from a side road (especially motorcycles), run red lights, and the list goes on and on and on. 

Plus?  Cops who aren't at an active road block don't care.  On the highway near our home, cars, trucks, and motorcycles will drive down Highway 11 the wrong way to get to a side road 100 meters down the road, and to do this they virtually drive by a BIB patrol station on the highway.  Cops don't do a thing.  Not ever when roadblocks are up.  No enforcement, no responsibility.  No change.

Cops will never be trained as patrol officers in cars, and the public will never receive proper driver training as I believe that even the teachers in "Driving School" have no clue as how to drive safely.  And aggressive Thai drivers will never be tamed.  So............?
The carnage will continue unabated.

And regarding videos sent to them.  They probably sit around and drink Thai whisky while having a laugh.  With the exception of accidents, I doubt they ever follow up on driving violations. 

[richard_smith237]

11 minutes ago, connda said:

And regarding videos sent to them.  They probably sit around and drink Thai whisky while having a laugh.  With the exception of accidents, I doubt they ever follow up on driving violations. 

 

I agree with everything you wrote in both of your above posts... 

 

The only time the BiB ever do follow up is when embarrassed to do so by social media... one of the bosses will ultimately ‘get embarrassed’ by one of his mates in another province and decide to tell one of his junior officers to ‘follow up’....

 

The general degree of apathy is an outstanding display of ‘couldn’t give a flying f....’ !!! 

[natway09]

It is a mindset thing, I bet by far the highest deaths or causing deaths are Thai males

As I just cannot understand most Thai males reasoning ideas anyway, even having worked with them for 30 years,,,,,, I'm outa here

[Joinaman]

I can never understand why the Thai police don; enforce moving violations, unsafe loads, spot checks, etc

Think how much more money they could earn, while just sitting/riding around the highways

Would make the checkpoint collections look like petty cash

[Smithson]

Always it seems the emphasis is on punishment, but how many Thais even know the rules? How many realize how dangerous tailgating is or that cars have blind spots where motorbikes shouldn't sit?

 

How about education?

 

Schools check hair length and uniform, yet don't check helmets, registration or licenses, even though they provide parking. Road safety should be taught in schools, there's definitely the time.

 

TV/social media education campaigns would also be valuable.

 

Everyday I see people turn left on bike without looking, it's obvious they don't realize how dangerous the roads are. An uncle here recently died doing it, but it's something ppl won't talk about.

[wprime]

On 4/28/2021 at 8:55 AM, sandyf said:

I would suggest you have left out an avenue, probably the most significant and the most difficult to address, personality trait. The Thais are inherently impatient, they always want to be first and will do what they want to get to the front of the queue. No amount of training or improvements is going to change that in the short term, it will only come as a generational evolvement.

 

I'm very curious about this, I can't call it impatience as they clearly aren't trying to get places quickly (if they are, they're doing a very bad job of it). They just seem to want to be in front.

[sandyf]

12 hours ago, wprime said:

 

I'm very curious about this, I can't call it impatience as they clearly aren't trying to get places quickly (if they are, they're doing a very bad job of it). They just seem to want to be in front.

My experience is that at 120k/hr you are continually overtaken but that may not be the norm.

Your last point is spot on.

It is not just the roads. My brother in law wanted to fell a tree that was threatening his electricity supply. I said he would need to take the top branches off first, that idea was too slow, he just went straight to the base of the trunk thinking they could pull the tree to one side, not a hope.

The tree came straight down on the cables and pulled the facia boards off the house, had to get the PEA and took a day to repair the damage.

[wprime]

4 hours ago, sandyf said:

My experience is that at 120k/hr you are continually overtaken but that may not be the norm.

Your last point is spot on.

It is not just the roads. My brother in law wanted to fell a tree that was threatening his electricity supply. I said he would need to take the top branches off first, that idea was too slow, he just went straight to the base of the trunk thinking they could pull the tree to one side, not a hope.

The tree came straight down on the cables and pulled the facia boards off the house, had to get the PEA and took a day to repair the damage.

 

If they overtake when I'm doing 120 I'm fine with that, what annoys me is when I slow down to 90 because there's a slow car in front of me then some slower car that I already passed catches up and undertake me. Then when that slow car moves out of the way, they don't speed up. What's the point of passing someone if you don't want to drive faster than them?

 

Or when I'm approaching a traffic light I tend to coast there (what's the point of driving fast when you're about to stop?) and people will often cut in front in the tight gap forcing me to brake hard. Then when the light goes great they take off at a turtle's pace. I have no problem with people cutting in front if they're actually trying to get places quickly but most of the time they're not interested in getting places quickly, they just want to be in front.