Picture: Daily News

 

Daily News made much of the start of a crackdown on black smoke belching vehicles in Chiang Mai yesterday.

 

The authorities are determined to stop them contributing to the PM2.5 pollution that regularly sees the northern Thai city named as one of the most polluted in the world in the cool season months. 

 

The crackdown is called "Inspect - Stop - Really Fine - Black Smoke emitting Vehicles".

 

All the protocols are in place to make sure that offenders with 50+ or 45+ on the scale get their vehicles off the road for repair and adaption.

 

The first day, however, with five inspectors crowding around one machine in a picture, failed to find any offenders. 

 

The plan is a joint effort by police and environmental groups and local authorities. 

 

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Good idea. Soon all the farmers will drive with electric cars to burn their ricefields.

They have all year to try and break bad habits like this,no,it is better to wait for smokey season!

Another 2 day crack down,more cracks in Thailand.

 

40 minutes ago, webfact said:

Really Fine

They must be getting serious at last, 1000 Thb fines ...????

I was looking up at the hills yesterday ,and they were getting

a little bit smoggy already,it could not be mist as it was after

noon, I am not expecting things to improve this year , as the

powers that be  are not going to do anything different ,than

in previous years. maybe buy more leaf blowers from China,

they need to be proactive and prevent the burning before it starts.

 

regards Worgeordie

When my car and bike go in for tax , insurance and testing they shove a pipe up my flue to check exhaust emissions , so I would say that vehicles chucking out smoke have not been tested or the owner knows a fail is on the way so drives around without a care in the world. Come on BiB check for smoke then check for all the other stuff. Oh and not just Changers , everywhere.

Oh dear...another 2 day crackdown!

1 minute ago, ChrisY1 said:

Oh dear...another 2 day crackdown!

As long as that ?

4 hours ago, webfact said:

crackdown on black smoke belching vehicles in Chiang Mai yesterday

low hanging fruits that are lucrative.

 

how about going after the farmers or corporations that burn?

4 hours ago, webfact said:

The first day, however, with five inspectors crowding around one machine in a picture, failed to find any offenders. 

Amazing.  I can stand and watch traffic on any busy road and find one within 5 minutes. 

What a joke - tell those pr1cks to go after those thousands of rice, corn and other agricultural fields being burnt just after harvest. In the 80s there was no such haze which meanwhile starts in December and carries through to the first rains end of April. 

You cannot fix stupid and the Thais will be paying a very high (health) price for all this damaged done by their fellow country men. I could move away, a privilege hardly available to any of the locals in and around Chiang Mai ......... 

5 minutes ago, Sydebolle said:

What a joke - tell those pr1cks to go after those thousands of rice, corn and other agricultural fields being burnt just after harvest. In the 80s there was no such haze which meanwhile starts in December and carries through to the first rains end of April. 

You cannot fix stupid and the Thais will be paying a very high (health) price for all this damaged done by their fellow country men. I could move away, a privilege hardly available to any of the locals in and around Chiang Mai ......... 

They need to do both .

Stop the field burning and also stop the polluting vehicles 

5 hours ago, webfact said:

The first day, however, with five inspectors crowding around one machine in a picture, failed to find any offenders. 

Probably because everyone slows down for a checkpoint and the vehicles mostly belch black smoke when accelerating.

 

Put on a show to pretend you are doing something while the hills are burning untouched.

5 hours ago, webfact said:

The crackdown is called "Inspect - Stop - Really Fine - Black Smoke emitting Vehicles".

There are a few “vehicles”last week..

4 hours ago, toofarnorth said:

they shove a pipe up my flue

Ouch.

Chiang Mai authorities have a long way to go if they’re going to crack down on smoke emitting vehicles, since almost every songthaew that drives in and around the city (many, many thousands of them) produces nothing but enormous clouds of black smoke. And that’s just the songthaews. And that’s been going on for as long as I can remember, and they’re going to crack down now? Why not 20 years ago already? Call me a cynic, but somehow I don’t have a lot of faith in the outcome of this ‘crackdown’.

PS: while you’re at it, why not do something about the burning as well? That is by far the biggest cause of the annual winter smog, so it would be good to start there. 

2 hours ago, Berkshire said:

Amazing.  I can stand and watch traffic on any busy road and find one within 5 minutes. 

You could blindfold me and have me point in any random direction on a busy intersection and I’d find one within 5 seconds. 

8 hours ago, webfact said:

The crackdown is called "Inspect - Stop - Really Fine - Black Smoke emitting Vehicles".

I makes money for the BIB.  Does little other than that.  The other BIB (Boys in Bangkok) need to enact legislation that puts some teeth in stopping forest arson and Ag burning (like those folks who are given seed, fertilizer, and everything they need to grow crops in the denuded mountains in CM and MHS - and then at the end of to crop cycle - burn it all down. (Oh WOW.  PM2 at 800 ppm!)  The folks who contract for those crops don't suffer.  Cha-Ching!
And instead of fines for vehicles, take them off the street until they are fixed. 
(Give me 500 THB.  All good!  Ticket for fine good all day at every other checkpoint. Wave you though!) 

It never ends.  It will never end.  Ever.  Just hot-air spewed by elite politicos.

"No find black smoke truck!!!"  ????

Well, get in your patrol car and drive around.  You'll find them.

"No have patrol car.  "Patrol car" used for BIB puuyai and escort VIP.  Mai mee.

And there ya have it.  Never changes.  But the "black smoke vehicles" are a fraction of the Hot Season PM 2.5 in the North.  That's all Ag and forest burning.

21 hours ago, webfact said:

The first day, however, with five inspectors crowding around one machine in a picture, failed to find any offenders.

How about red buses and tuk-tuk? Are they invisible?

And when the farmers start the burning season, where will plod be then, nowhere.

21 hours ago, toofarnorth said:

When my car and bike go in for tax , insurance and testing they shove a pipe up my flue to check exhaust emissions , so I would say that vehicles chucking out smoke have not been tested or the owner knows a fail is on the way so drives around without a care in the world. Come on BiB check for smoke then check for all the other stuff. Oh and not just Changers , everywhere.

I was thinking the same: how come some cars have smoke? the yearly check should prevent this...

so either they don't check properly or they dodge the check completely!

yesterday only I saw several cars with way to much smoke!

a lot of work to be done!

Crackdowns are totally useless for chronic problems. Chronic problems need constant enforcement. Every day the highways are clogged with over loaded, polluting vehicles spew black smoke and that look like they were last cleaning during the Vietnam war. Polluting vehicles need to be impounded and taken off the road until the owner pays for them to be made roadworthy. Hit the owners of these polluting heaps of junk.

30 minutes ago, Sticky Rice Balls said:

Indeed =they can make an app and Im happy to click off some pics of my daily bicycle ride in city of those smoky offenders.....(cough)

First time I rode my bicycle up Doi Suthep was around 9.30 in the morning. Didn’t even make it halfway up because of all the songthaews and buses going up the mountain as well, almost all of them belching out so much black smoke, right in my face. 
So I started doing my rides around 7.30 or 8.00 in the morning, before the songthaews and buses started going up the mountain. That was always a good workout, with the reward of a super fast downhill ride afterward. Really loved doing that, overtaking cars and buses, seeing the look of surprise on the faces of the drivers as they were being passed by someone on a bike.

But that was years ago, before Chiang Mai was being almost continuously suffocated by smog for 4-6 months every winter.