Minivan vs Pattaya bus

[NanLaew]

14 hours ago, Lemsta69 said:

14 hours ago, champers said:

Why choose a minibus?

Why not, they do the job?

What job? Life changing injuries? Premature death?

[champers]

I would check that your embassy is actually open on Monday. It is a holiday for many in lieu of HM Queen Mother's birthday on Saturday.

[David Cartwright]

1. Take the train! Help the environment and enjoy the countryside in comfort and complete safety.

Link to train details follow:

Pattaya to Bangkok | Train times & tickets - Thailand Trains https://www.thailandtrains.com/train-times-from-pattaya-to-bangkok/Pattaya to Bangkok | Train times & tickets - Thailand Trains https://www.thailandtrains.com/train-times-from-pattaya-to-bangkok/

19 hours ago, BenStark said:

Thanks everyone for your feedback, it is clear that the big bus is the preferable option for everyone.

 

[Lemsta69]

9 hours ago, NanLaew said:

What job? Life changing injuries? Premature death?

If Pattaya to Bangkok minivans are so dangerous why do we not see daily reports of the mounting death toll?

[bbko]

3 minutes ago, Lemsta69 said:

If Pattaya to Bangkok minivans are so dangerous why do we not see daily reports of the mounting death toll?

Right, there's at least 3 of those minivan companies on Pattaya Klang making runs to BKK just about every hour, guessing at least 30 vans runs a day up and 30 runs back per day that's 60 at a min, the way some AN members post, you'd think they are crashing daily. 

[scubascuba3]

14 minutes ago, bbko said:

Right, there's at least 3 of those minivan companies on Pattaya Klang making runs to BKK just about every hour, guessing at least 30 vans runs a day up and 30 runs back per day that's 60 at a min, the way some AN members post, you'd think they are crashing daily. 

If you've ever done border runs on those same vans you'll know how reckless the driving is sometimes, big buses never a problem and if you did crash it's unlikely to be bad, with minivans it crumples, I've seen people fall out the back, but up to you. It's all about reducing risk

Edited August 14, 2023 by scubascuba3

[Olmate]

1 hour ago, scubascuba3 said:

If you've ever done border runs on those same vans you'll know how reckless the driving is sometimes, big buses never a problem and if you did crash it's unlikely to be bad, with minivans it crumples, I've seen people fall out the back, but up to you. It's all about reducing risk

Mini coaches from Klang usually 

[XB12X]

I wouldn't get in a minivan. Crazy drivers. Bus every time.

[Toby1947]

On 8/13/2023 at 5:15 AM, Lemsta69 said:

Why not, they do the job?

Because he may not have a pair of brown trousers 

[jesimps]

On 8/13/2023 at 11:15 AM, Lemsta69 said:

Why not, they do the job?

Yes, but it's often a white-knuckle ride. Taxis too. I refuse to travel in either on an inter city trip.

[jesimps]

My preferred mode of travel between Pattaya and Bangkok is car to Suvarnabhumi. Park up and take sky train into city. More expensive than big bus, but gives me more flexibility. On no account will I use a minibus or taxi.

[Umlungu]

21 hours ago, treetops said:

Take your on-line booking information to the desk selling tickets and they'll exchange it for your actual ticket which will have a seat number on it.

If you're talking about the airport bus, what you're saying is correct, however the actual ticket will NOT have a seat number on it. It's free seating as you board.

[Umlungu]

10 hours ago, Lemsta69 said:

If Pattaya to Bangkok minivans are so dangerous why do we not see daily reports of the mounting death toll?

More minivan crashes than bus accidents.

 

Minivans go full throttle, and if you hit a downpour on the way into BKK, they hardly reduce the speed. Observed from travelling on board and in a car on the highway. Tailgating, lights flashing, aggressive, and way over the 120km/h speed limit.

 

With a bus you have definite departure time, with a minivan it leaves when it's full, or it leaves half full and goes on a pick-up/collect cruise through Ptya first.

[Lemsta69]

55 minutes ago, Umlungu said:

More minivan crashes than bus accidents.

 

Minivans go full throttle, and if you hit a downpour on the way into BKK, they hardly reduce the speed. Observed from travelling on board and in a car on the highway. Tailgating, lights flashing, aggressive, and way over the 120km/h speed limit.

 

With a bus you have definite departure time, with a minivan it leaves when it's full, or it leaves half full and goes on a pick-up/collect cruise through Ptya first.

Yerr I know but thanks for including the details, unlike the person I originally replied to ????

[pomchop]

On 8/12/2023 at 9:30 PM, BenStark said:

Thanks, good find and booked already.

 

Now the question remains, seat is not selectable, and neither is there a seat number on the receipt

 

So how will I get a seat number assigned?

 

Edit: It's in the remarks, have to be there at least 30 minutes before departure, so looks as if you still risk of having no seat

Tip: Take some kind of light jacket or even a towel on the bus as sometimes the a/c will freeze u to death and the controls do nothing...i have also had one above me dripping cold water down so a towel was good to block that...only happened couplle of times out of many rides but pretty miserable if u get an unlucky seat beneath a bad a/c vent..

[NanLaew]

6 hours ago, Lemsta69 said:

Yerr I know but thanks for including the details, unlike the person I originally replied to ????

Based on the logic of there being a perceived lack of reported events, you are suggesting that Highway 7 is somehow safer? Drivers more cautious? Speeds slower? The low-profile 'racing' tires that they replace the manufacturers recommended original ones with are better quality?

 

https://www.newsflare.com/video/333608/crime-accidents/dramatic-moment-minivan-crashed-injuring-eight-britons-on-first-day-of-holiday-in-thailand#

 

You can argue this one wasn't on your super-safe Highway 7 until the cows come home but note that "they were on their way to Bangkok" but probably hadn't planned on an barbecue on the way.

 

https://www.pattayamail.com/news/7-die-2-injured-in-pattaya-commuter-minivan-crash-23050

 

More recently, this one made the Australian news headlines. Once again, not on the Highway 7 but "heading from Chantaburi to Bangkok" so would have been on your super-safe Highway 7 eventually if only the driver had kept his foot off the gas.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-03/thai-road-crash-kills-25-people/8158566

 

My reasoning is based on the notion that "it only takes one". I also remember my grandfather's suggestion that, "You have to die of something." However, it is entirely up to you to keep rolling the dice.

 

 

Edited August 14, 2023 by NanLaew

[BenStark]

4 hours ago, NanLaew said:

Based on the logic of there being a perceived lack of reported events, you are suggesting that Highway 7 is somehow safer? Drivers more cautious? Speeds slower? The low-profile 'racing' tires that they replace the manufacturers recommended original ones with are better quality?

 

https://www.newsflare.com/video/333608/crime-accidents/dramatic-moment-minivan-crashed-injuring-eight-britons-on-first-day-of-holiday-in-thailand#

 

You can argue this one wasn't on your super-safe Highway 7 until the cows come home but note that "they were on their way to Bangkok" but probably hadn't planned on an barbecue on the way.

 

https://www.pattayamail.com/news/7-die-2-injured-in-pattaya-commuter-minivan-crash-23050

 

More recently, this one made the Australian news headlines. Once again, not on the Highway 7 but "heading from Chantaburi to Bangkok" so would have been on your super-safe Highway 7 eventually if only the driver had kept his foot off the gas.

 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-03/thai-road-crash-kills-25-people/8158566

 

My reasoning is based on the notion that "it only takes one". I also remember my grandfather's suggestion that, "You have to die of something." However, it is entirely up to you to keep rolling the dice.

 

 

WOW, links to 3 accidents over a period of TEN years.

 

I'm sure that where you come from no serious accidents have happened in that same period of TEN years. Not?

[Lemsta69]

4 hours ago, NanLaew said:

Based on the logic of there being a perceived lack of reported events, you are suggesting that Highway 7 is somehow safer?

Nope, just asking a question. Motorway crashes are big news so is expect that if they were happening every day then we'd hear about it via the various channels.

 

At any rate, you seem to have missed my original point. It is insufficient to say "minivan bad, big bus good". Provide at least some background to that assertion, not everyone is dialled in on this stuff.

[NanLaew]

2 hours ago, BenStark said:

WOW, links to 3 accidents over a period of TEN years.

 

I'm sure that where you come from no serious accidents have happened in that same period of TEN years. Not?

Happen all the time right here, where I come from in Thailand so I can't see your point. But maybe you are confusing me with someone who thinks the Bangkok-Pattaya route is somehow blessed by St. Christopher, the patron saint of enduring road safety.

[BenStark]

5 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

Happen all the time right here, where I come from in Thailand so I can't see your point. But maybe you are confusing me with someone who thinks the Bangkok-Pattaya route is somehow blessed by St. Christopher, the patron saint of enduring road safety.

I'm sure you very well understood the question "where you come from", and we all know you didn't grow up in Thailand, actually it seems to me you never grew up.

 

So keep up the trolling to enforce your flawed opinion

[NanLaew]

2 hours ago, Lemsta69 said:

Nope, just asking a question. Motorway crashes are big news so is expect that if they were happening every day then we'd hear about it via the various channels.

 

At any rate, you seem to have missed my original point. It is insufficient to say "minivan bad, big bus good". Provide at least some background to that assertion, not everyone is dialled in on this stuff.

And you may be confusing me with someone else who said "big bus good" as I certainly never said it.

 

If the lack of news item about minivan crashes on Highway 7 suggests to you that it's safer than any of the other options for the same trip, then nobody here is stopping you doing it. However, the driver of your next minivan may have a different idea about what you are able to do in the future.

[NanLaew]

4 minutes ago, BenStark said:

I'm sure you very well understood the question "where you come from", and we all know you didn't grow up in Thailand, actually it seems to me you never grew up.

 

So keep up the trolling to enforce your flawed opinion

We are talking about road traffic accidents and fatalities in Thailand on a Thai-centric internet forum.

 

Hope this helps with your bunched panties issue.

 

Yours truly,

[fredwiggy]

On 8/13/2023 at 11:31 AM, pomchop said:

I feel a lot safer on the big bus....i have had a few minbus rides where the driver thought he was mario andretti....and scared the crap out of me.  But to be fair i have had a few that were just fine.

Mario Andretti  Ha  That's the man my friends and I always compared crazy drivers to when we lived in New Jersey. Taking a van brings you directly, or almost, to your destination, unlike a bus which goes to Mo chit, then a cab ride to the embassy. I was always okay with vans until I saw the accident awhile back where I think at least 12 died, and one was ejected through the side door and lived. The van was enveloped in flames from the propane. I'm okay taking the one from near my house to the nearest city, because it's 30 kilos through country and they don't drive like Andretti.

[Lemsta69]

1 hour ago, NanLaew said:

And you may be confusing me with someone else who said "big bus good" as I certainly never said it.

I know you didn't say that, it was the person I originally responded to. For some reason you jumped in and decided that I'm pro-minivan when all I was doing was asking the fella to justify his position. 

 

I was responding to a throwaway line with a throwaway line, Shirley you're clever enough to have figured that out?

[NanLaew]

2 minutes ago, Lemsta69 said:

I know you didn't say that, it was the person I originally responded to. For some reason you jumped in and decided that I'm pro-minivan when all I was doing was asking the fella to justify his position. 

 

I was responding to a throwaway line with a throwaway line, Shirley you're clever enough to have figured that out?

Throwaway. As in lives lost in minivan prangs?

[Lemsta69]

Just now, NanLaew said:

Throwaway. As in lives lost in minivan prangs?

Throwaway. As in posting simplistic advice and then not backing it up when challenged/letting someone else do the hard yakka.

[Olmate]

For a sample minivan trip try Patts to Sattahip on Sukumvit in peak hour, return is optional! 

[treetops]

17 hours ago, Umlungu said:

If you're talking about the airport bus, what you're saying is correct, however the actual ticket will NOT have a seat number on it. It's free seating as you board.

The OP I was replying to is discussing the bus from Pattaya Nua, not the airport bus.

[jacko45k]

20 hours ago, BenStark said:

WOW, links to 3 accidents over a period of TEN years.

 

I'm sure that where you come from no serious accidents have happened in that same period of TEN years. Not?

Inane response......

Minivans have a well known reputation for a dangerous ride with reckless driving within Thailand. The OP question relates to a minibus in the Pattaya area to Bangkok... yet you choose to distract bringing up accidents in far flung countries. Even the OP is aware of that reputation.

[bbko]

Just more scare stories from the cowardly lions.  A few months back I was in a bar talking with a fellow American that just arrived in town for his first visit.  He proceeds to tell me about his "terrifying" taxi ride from the airport to Pattaya.  He said the driver was speeding and he kept yelling at him to slow down, our conversation went like this;

 

Me: How fast was he going?

Him: 100 miler per hour,

Me: Really?

Him: Yeah, I kept yelling at him to slow down, but he wouldn't

Me: How did you know he was going 100 mph?

Him: I was looking at the speedometer

Me: And the speedometer needle was on 100?

Him: Yeah!

Me: You know speedometers in Thailand are in kilometers right?

Him: (blank stare)

Me: 55555