Man pilloried online for ramming car into students on zebra crossing

[snoop1130]

 

A motorist has come under heavy criticism on social media today (Monday) after he allegedly rammed his car into a group of students last Friday, as they were walking over a zebra crossing in front of their school in Bangkok’s Phaya Thai district, injuring three of them.

 

The mother of one of those injured said that she took her boy to hospital today because he was complaining of dizziness.

 

She said that the motorist did not stop at the crossing, even though a school official raised a red flag to indicate that the students could cross, adding however that, after the accident, the motorist did not even stop to help get the injured students to the nearest hospital, but drove straight to the Phaya Thai police station instead.

 

Full Story: https://www.thaipbsworld.com/man-pilloried-online-for-ramming-car-into-students-on-zebra-crossing/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2022-08-22

 

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[Iamfalang]

There can be a policeman in the zebra crossing telling the cars to stop and I've seen cars speed up.

 

Zero awareness, zero thinking, zero understanding of anything, and complete obvious that there are hundreds of kids walking around.   it's me, me, me!!!!

 

On the other hand, the policeman in the zebra crossing does nothing.    maybe a strange hand gesture, but that's it.

 

In America, you have about 10 cops and the SWAT team chasing rouge cars.   That's another story.  

[Gottfrid]

4 hours ago, Iamfalang said:

There can be a policeman in the zebra crossing telling the cars to stop and I've seen cars speed up.

Sure you have. Must have been sitting there long time, though. Thank you for sharing your interest. 

[Geoffggi]

Thailand’s roads are among the deadliest in the world, and despite a high-profile case in January in which an eye doctor was killed while walking on a zebra crossing by a police officer on a large motorcycle in broad daylight, the problem persists.

 

As has been said on numerous occasions Thailand's problems stem for not having meaningful deterrents in place in the way of fines, confiscation of license/Bike or Car  or detention for any of the offences. They have no such reserves about holding a sea cucumber or catching fish for some strange reason,

[RichardColeman]

How about Plod get ordered off their bums for 2 hours a day to do lollipop duty on the zebras near schools

[tandor]

...there are plenty of 'inactive police' who could be assigned pedestrian crossing duties, morning and afternoon for a few hours. It should be a routine duty for all RTP traffic police at any rate!

[sammieuk1]

Get your kids off my road or I will mow them down as seen in the video of this act of abject negligence online yesterday ????

[Ralf001]

37 minutes ago, RichardColeman said:

How about Plod get ordered off their bums for 2 hours a day to do lollipop duty on the zebras near schools

Basically like what the guard with the red flag was doing ?

[Iamfalang]

9 hours ago, Gottfrid said:

Sure you have. Must have been sitting there long time, though. Thank you for sharing your interest. 

For FIVE YEARS...................five years.............................I worked at a school.

 

You think I don't have first-hand experience with this?

 

There were TWO Zebra Crossings in front of our school.

 

Are you not aware that falangs are/have working/worked at Thai schools and might be around such situations???????????????????

 

Sitting there a long time?????????? What are you talking about.

 

There is a red light, I wait for the policeman............. I've seen kids get hit by cars before...

 

will you deny that I've seen this??? lol

 

My school had about 3,500 students.  Can you imagine how many are trying to cross the street in a busy city????

 

think of all the times the light changes.

 

Every morning and every afternoon, and during my lunch break.

 

times five years

 

yes, i've seen things

 

sure

 

sure

 

lol

Edited August 23, 2022 by Iamfalang

[pedro01]

I stop for Zebra crossings - usually it takes 2 mins for people to realize someone has actually  stopped.

 

The rumor that "you shouldn't stop because you'll be rear-ended" is a fallacy. There's plenty of reasons cars stop on the roads without causing an accident.

 

 

[IvorBiggun2]

1 hour ago, tandor said:

...there are plenty of 'inactive police' who could be assigned pedestrian crossing duties, morning and afternoon for a few hours. It should be a routine duty for all RTP traffic police at any rate!

What's the point? The police have the same intellect as the people they are trying to police. The schools around here only get traffic control in the morning. In the afternoon it's then look out for yourselves. I'm surprised that when the police do school patrols they don't place a broken tree branch prior to the school crossing. It works for lorry breakdowns.       

Edited August 23, 2022 by IvorBiggun2

[EricTh]

14 hours ago, Iamfalang said:

 

In America, you have about 10 cops and the SWAT team chasing rouge cars.   That's another story.  

You cannot expect the same behavior in western countries.

 

Cars not stopping at zebra crossing is the norm in Asian countries if you have been to other Asian countries except Japan. Most Japanese do not drive anyway.

 

Always look for no-cars coming before crossing.

 

The roads in America is not as congested as in Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. 

Edited August 23, 2022 by EricTh

[swm59nj]

Another local driver with typical mentality 

[Gottfrid]

55 minutes ago, Iamfalang said:

For FIVE YEARS...................five years.............................I worked at a school.

 

You think I don't have first-hand experience with this?

 

There were TWO Zebra Crossings in front of our school.

 

Are you not aware that falangs are/have working/worked at Thai schools and might be around such situations???????????????????

 

Sitting there a long time?????????? What are you talking about.

 

There is a red light, I wait for the policeman............. I've seen kids get hit by cars before...

 

will you deny that I've seen this??? lol

 

My school had about 3,500 students.  Can you imagine how many are trying to cross the street in a busy city????

 

think of all the times the light changes.

 

Every morning and every afternoon, and during my lunch break.

 

times five years

 

yes, i've seen things

 

sure

 

sure

 

lol

I know I was right when I said long time. You said it yourself. 5 Years! Whatever you are mumbling about, I don´t know. AFAIK, I have not denied anything.

[huangnon]

Maybe getting "pilloried" for real might help these people augment a few manners or consideration for other road-users and pedestrians?

[Andre0720]

The only way, would be to install railway crossing gates on each side of zebra crossings.

Maybe this might work.

Maybe

[Preacher]

10 hours ago, Gottfrid said:

Sure you have. Must have been sitting there long time, though. Thank you for sharing your interest. 

As a teacher I help my students cross the road almost every day because it is very dangerous. Yes, there are those who don't stop for police or see others stopping and just take the opportunity to put the pedal to the metal.

 

In fact I am glad there no longer is a police officer at our school, as when I am alone the drivers tend to stop more. And after 3 years doing this many locals now the drill when they see me and tend to slow down by themselves. Now there are on avarage only 3 dangerous situation a week.

[Gottfrid]

4 minutes ago, Preacher said:

As a teacher I help my students cross the road almost every day because it is very dangerous. Yes, there are those who don't stop for police or see others stopping and just take the opportunity to put the pedal to the metal.

 

In fact I am glad there no longer is a police officer at our school, as when I am alone the drivers tend to stop more. And after 3 years doing this many locals now the drill when they see me and tend to slow down by themselves. Now there are on avarage only 3 dangerous situation a week.

How fantastic!

[Andre0720]

24 minutes ago, EricTh said:

You cannot expect the same behavior in western countries.

 

Cars not stopping at zebra crossing is the norm in Asian countries if you have been to other Asian countries except Japan. Most Japanese do not drive anyway.

 

Always look for no-cars coming before crossing.

 

The roads in America is not as congested as in Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. 

There is no justification whatsoever to consider as normal people endangering other people wanting to cross a road.

Endangering men, women, elders, students, people who might be part of one's family. If one would abstain from endangering his own children or family, this is done by ignoring the fact that these people being endangered are children of someone else, or part of the family of someone else.

How far can egotistic behaviors go....

[Henryford]

Here in Pattaya they have just spent months, and goodness knows how many baht, painting red lines and yellow boxes all over the roads. A complete waste of time and money as they totally ignored by all the road users. Even outside Pattaya Court House cars park on red zones, on the pavements etc and absolutely nothing is done.

[Old Croc]

15 hours ago, Iamfalang said:

In America, you have about 10 cops and the SWAT team chasing rouge cars.   That's another story.  

Note to self:

When in America make sure my hire car isn't red.

[Tropposurfer]

I searched for a short while to see if I could find any information (from varied nations) as to social attitudes and norms around road safety and how long (if there was any data) it has taken to make substantive changes to social behaviours regarding road safety.

No luck finding anything in the 10 minutes I spent searching, other than stats on deaths.

I then went to my own home-nations databases and found this model of change that has shown to be effective in amending road safety issues.

https://www.roadsafety.gov.au/nrss/fact-sheets/social-model-approach

 

As you can see this model of change has a multi-spoked approach.

 

I can't see anything re: this huge socialised problem changing without a national plan and a lot of focussed, coordinated, action by government, police, and courts.

 

I saw on the BBC news (yesterday I think it was) an horrific accident in Turkey where over 30 people were killed in a mass accident where a large articulated truck plowed into a load of rescue , ambulance, and cars at an already attended road accident.

Apparently Turkey has many thousands of road deaths a year (for year 2020 - 5,573) but not anywhere near the numbers we have in LOS.

 

Sadly I feel, we never drive long distances in LOS because of the dangers of being on the roads for extended periods. We'd love to do a relaxed road-trip to Chiang Mai for example.

I try to never be on the roads really late at night/early morning on the island (I imagine drunks being exponentially out more during the dark hours?).

 

[scorecard]

3 hours ago, sammieuk1 said:

Get your kids off my road or I will mow them down as seen in the video of this act of abject negligence online yesterday ????

This coud stem from an attitude I've seen before in my Thai in law relatives. One old bird who has been stopped many time for breaking road laws.

 

As well as some illogical excuses, several time she has said 'I don't observe that law because I don't believe there should even be such laws, I should have freedom to do as I want'. Attempts to get her to understand 'it's the law of Thailand' achieve nothing, she continues "i don't follow laws that I don't agree with'.

 

Some years ago she was stopped for driving through a red light in Sukothai (where she lives), she strongly abused the cops on duty and told them they were corrupt, and she was taken to the police station. Snr. cop told her 'it's the law of Thailand, you have to stop at a red light'.

 

Other relatives with her, she insisted, to the Snr. cop 'NO, I don't agree with the idea of traffic lights so I ignore them'.

 

Cop gave up trying to get her to understand, fined her 5,000Baht for breaking the law re the red light and for being abusive to the cops. And demaned she py the 5,000Baht before she could leave the station. 

[NoshowJones]

2 hours ago, EricTh said:

You cannot expect the same behavior in western countries.

 

Cars not stopping at zebra crossing is the norm in Asian countries if you have been to other Asian countries except Japan. Most Japanese do not drive anyway.

 

Always look for no-cars coming before crossing.

 

The roads in America is not as congested as in Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. 

Having driven in a few American cities, I cannot go along with this.

[steven100]

17 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

but drove straight to the Phaya Thai police station instead.

so did the driver go straight to the police station to admit he drove into some students at the crossing ?

[Bangkok Barry]

Altogether, 25,000 baht of compensations for medical expenses has been paid to the victims by the motorist, who promised to meet with their parents at the police station at the end of this month to discuss further compensation.

So not stopping for 20 seconds has cost him 25,000 and counting. Pretty expensive mistake. Will he do it again? Probably, because he'll have learnt nothing.

[greenmonkey]

Disgusting disgusting disgusting behaviour... maybe not in this case but often the drivers are at schools to pick up their own kids and still drive like this (maybe not as bad but will drive with very little regard to the childrens safety).

 

A few years back I had to jump off the footpath because a driver didn't want to queue at the crossing behind cars, and so drove at the very edge of the road and on the walking path to bypass the cars that were waiting. I had to jump off the road to avoid being hit. I couldn't believe it. Seen countless cars driving at speed in busy school areas. I just don't get this mindset... i really don't. It's like, 'I only care about my kids and couldn't care less about anyone elses'.

[greenmonkey]

Quote: The mother also said that the motorist offered an apology for “causing a waste of time” to the students and their parents, but did not ask about their condition when they met at the police station.

 

I think I would have knocked the guy out if that is what he'd said to me.

[NanLaew]

18 hours ago, Iamfalang said:

In America, you have about 10 cops and the SWAT team chasing rouge cars.   That's another story.  

Good job mine's a sort of beige then.

[NanLaew]

1 hour ago, steven100 said:

so did the driver go straight to the police station to admit he drove into some students at the crossing ?

He spotted some elderly farangs on the sidewalk and feared he may be lynched if he stopped to help.