Rant.

[dddave]

Last night, about 10pm, on my motorbike, I turned South onto on Jomtien Beach Road from Soi-7. As always, before turning I stopped and looked both ways, checking to my right one more time before pulling out.  There were no visible vehicles approaching.  As I pulled onto Beach Rd, a sudden loud exhaust blast and a speeding, black Motorcycle literally brushed by me...The &$%#& idiot was back on one wheel, front wheel and headlight pointing to the sky, racing down Beach Rd, passing every vehicle without regard for oncoming traffic, remaining one wheeled.  

I see idiocy every day in some form on local roadways but this Bozo took the prize for imbecile of the year.  He nearly rammed me and if he'd lost control at that speed with that big a bike, could easily have maimed or killed anybody walking or riding nearby.  

No matter how careful one tries to be, they'll always the chance a moron such as this will appear out of the shadows.

[novacova]

There is no such thing as being too careful while driving. Just hope I don’t win the smashed from behind lottery.

[Foxx]

On the plus side, he's probably not going to live very long.

[novacova]

7 minutes ago, dddave said:

passing every vehicle without regard for oncoming traffic, remaining one wheeled.

I’m sure the &$%#& idiot will be weeded out, just hope he doesn’t take anyone with him.

[dddave]

That's the problem.  It's usually the boneheads that "survive with minor injuries",  unlike the hapless victims in the wrong place at the wrong time.

[Furioso]

I had a similar thing happen on Pratumnak 5, the guy was flying up the street, swerved and barely squeezed between my bike and an oncoming bus. 

 

Limit riding at night, especially near the beach. Stay safe out there fella's. 

 

 

[dddave]

6 minutes ago, Furioso said:

I had a similar thing happen on Pratumnak 5, the guy was flying up the street, swerved and barely squeezed between my bike and an oncoming bus. 

 

Limit riding at night, especially near the beach. Stay safe out there fella's. 

 

 

Yesterdays news reported a very serious motorbike collision on Pratumnak-5 a few nights ago.  One guy was really badly messed-up. Bikes speeding on P-5 seem to have no awareness of how long it takes to stop when going downhill.

[Trippy]

Too many drunk drivers at night, best to get a bolt car.

[BigStar]

13 minutes ago, Trippy said:

Too many drunk drivers at night, best to get a bolt car.

 

Good point. Now that traffic's become so bad in Pattaya I'm taking Bolt more and more. Reasonable price, well worth it.

[impulse]

I protected myself from the idiots on the road with a ton and a half of steel, 4 wheels, seatbelts and a roof over my head.

 

[bkk6060]

I would argue the traffic is worse then ever. And, the 2 story busses are back in great numbers. It is very dangerous out there I try to walk more places. But, even then look in all directions as with the traffic mess sidewalk motorbike riding and wrong way riders are very common. Be safe everyone it seems to get better after Valentines day until Songkran. 

[richard_smith237]

1 hour ago, dddave said:

I see idiocy every day in some form on local roadways but this Bozo took the prize for imbecile of the year.  He nearly rammed me and if he'd lost control at that speed with that big a bike, could easily have maimed or killed anybody walking or riding nearby.  

No matter how careful one tries to be, they'll always the chance a moron such as this will appear out of the shadows.

 

Agreed... This is the impact of ineffective policing.. 

Multiple innocents are killed daily because people have no fear of penalties from law enforcement, the apathetic standards of policing here effectively enables such behavior and is blight on society. 

 

Behavior such as that you have described angers me... when I see behavior such as this I'd like to catch such people and absolutely throttle them before they get a chance to hurt someone. 

 

The saying 'you can't be too careful'... has additional meaning here.....  

 

 

 

[impulse]

3 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

Agreed... This is the impact of ineffective policing.. 

Multiple innocents are killed daily because people have no fear of penalties from law enforcement, the apathetic standards of policing here effectively enables such behavior and is blight on society. 

 

Agreed.

 

When I was a kid first learning to drive, I was young, bulletproof and pretty oblivious to danger.  But I was too broke to afford a ticket.  So I practiced driving to avoid tickets.  Which, not so coincidentally, was good practice to avoid accidents.

 

[richard_smith237]

16 minutes ago, impulse said:

I protected myself from the idiots on the road with a ton and a half of steel, 4 wheels, seatbelts and a roof over my head.

 

Mates were at a major junction chatting...  (the first at a set of lights)... the visibility of road layout was very poor due to a bridge (columns in the way so they couldn't see down the road)... Still chatting, the lights turned green and they didn't notice, the car behind papped the horn and they were about to move forwards as a big lorry (18 wheeler) blew though the junction at high speed narrowly missing them... 

... 1 and have tonnes of steel, 4 wheels, a roof and seatbelts would have done nothing to save them....  

 

Wife was at a junction in Bangkok, light turned green and just as she was about to pull out a public bus blew through the junction. 

Wife called the land transport complaint line to report the incidnet and pointed out that CCTV could identify this bus driver...  wife asked the person on the other end... "what if he'd have killed me?"... .  the response... "then you'd have been dead and unable to complain"...

 

Just this week a woman was killed (in her car), doing nothing other than queueing up in traffic at the lights...  another brake failure incident. 

 

 

While there is no accountability, there is no responsibility, and when there is no responsibility there is no education and maintenance etc... 

The system isn't just broken, the whole culture is when it comes towards attitudes towards safety....

 

And yes... this is a (partial) Thai-bash, and this Thai-bash matches the same comments repeated on Thai forums made by Thai's themselves...   No one cares about safety here because they are not forced to.

 

It requires a whole cultural shift and for that to happen, attitudes need to change from the top down with effective enforcement. 

[impulse]

2 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

It requires a whole cultural shift and for that to happen, attitudes need to change from the top down with effective enforcement. 

 

But that ain't gonna happen in my lifetime.  So, based on US and OZ studies that found scooters to be 20-40x as deadly per km, I'm going with my 4 wheeler.  It may not save me from everything.  Just most things.

 

All I can do is what I can do.  What I can't do is change a culture.  Don't even want to try.  Don Quixote and all.

 

[richard_smith237]

3 minutes ago, impulse said:

Agreed.

 

When I was a kid first learning to drive, I was young, bulletproof and pretty oblivious to danger.  But I was too broke to afford a ticket.  So I practiced driving to avoid tickets.  Which, not so coincidentally, was good practice to avoid accidents.

 

In the UK I consider the Policing standards to have dropped regarding how people drive... there is less courtesy etc than there used to be, however, driving is still much less 'nutty' than it is here and incomparison a lot safer, I just see far far less dumb stuff on the roads there than here. 

In the UK controls on drivers are very stringent and fines expensive, that is a very effective control, as you mentioned. 

Also very effective is the insurance costs....   Insurance is now so expensive, youngsters (unless very wealthy) can only afford slow cars and companies are insisting on 'black-box tech' which monitors driver behavior and increases / decreases premiums accordingly. 

 

The single biggest impact law enforcement has to motoring is to the pocket - and in Thailand the fines are miniscule....    I don't care if I drift over 120 kmh on a quiet tollway because I don't care about the 500 baht fine....  

At the same time, I wont drive 80kmh down Sukhumivt rd in Bangkok (which is the limit if I'm not mistaken) because I consider that way way too fast. 

A lot of drivers just don't really think, because they don't have to and thats a problem. 

 

 

 

 

[richard_smith237]

2 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

But that ain't gonna happen in my lifetime.  So, based on US and OZ studies that found scooters to be 20-40x as deadly per km, I'm going with my 4 wheeler.  It may not save me from everything.  Just most things.

 

All I can do is what I can do.  What I can't do is change a culture.  Don't even want to try.  Don Quixote and all.

 

 

100% agree....   

 

That said, I do have a motorcycle and over the past few years use it sparingly only when I need too... (not at night and rarely on major roads these days)....    

 

But, as per the Op... the same could have happened when trying to cross a road... 

Or the richard-head pulling a wheely could have lost control and hit pedestrians etc...      

[impulse]

12 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

But, as per the Op... the same could have happened when trying to cross a road... 

Or the richard-head pulling a wheely could have lost control and hit pedestrians etc...   

 

Maybe it's racist, but the ones that cheez me off the most are the idiot foreigners, because I know that they learned better back home.  Otherwise, they would have lost their licenses decades ago.  I'm more forgiving of locals that maybe never learned.

 

I didn't see in the OP whether it was a local or a foreigner...

 

[PJ71]

1 hour ago, dddave said:

Last night, about 10pm, on my motorbike, I turned South onto on Jomtien Beach Road from Soi-7. As always, before turning I stopped and looked both ways, checking to my right one more time before pulling out.  There were no visible vehicles approaching.  As I pulled onto Beach Rd, a sudden loud exhaust blast and a speeding, black Motorcycle literally brushed by me...The &$%#& idiot was back on one wheel, front wheel and headlight pointing to the sky, racing down Beach Rd, passing every vehicle without regard for oncoming traffic, remaining one wheeled.  

I see idiocy every day in some form on local roadways but this Bozo took the prize for imbecile of the year.  He nearly rammed me and if he'd lost control at that speed with that big a bike, could easily have maimed or killed anybody walking or riding nearby.  

No matter how careful one tries to be, they'll always the chance a moron such as this will appear out of the shadows.

So it's situation normal in Pattaya, thanks for letting us know.

[PJ71]

16 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

100% agree....   

 

That said, I do have a motorcycle and over the past few years use it sparingly only when I need too... (not at night and rarely on major roads these days)....    

 

But, as per the Op... the same could have happened when trying to cross a road... 

Or the richard-head pulling a wheely could have lost control and hit pedestrians etc...      

Were you the 'richard-head'?

[NextG]

1 hour ago, dddave said:

Yesterdays news reported a very serious motorbike collision on Pratumnak-5 a few nights ago.  One guy was really badly messed-up. Bikes speeding on P-5 seem to have no awareness of how long it takes to stop when going downhill.

I switch engine off when going down 5. A nice easy glide. 

[richard_smith237]

34 minutes ago, impulse said:

 

Maybe it's racist, but the ones that cheez me off the most are the idiot foreigners, because I know that they learned better back home.  Otherwise, they would have lost their licenses decades ago.  I'm more forgiving of locals that maybe never learned.

 

I didn't see in the OP whether it was a local or a foreigner...

 

 

Yep... I can understand that...  It's easier to be forgiving of someone we consider doesn't know any better...

 

... nevertheless, feckless but dangerous stupidity is also extremely annoying...  Perhaps the feeling of wanting to give these idiots a battering is really about 'educating' them !!!  (whatever nationality). 

[ezzra]

Rants about dimwits and Burks driving/riding in Pattaya, ( mostly non Thai) is akin to complaining of too many flees and

cockroaches in a cheap motel dive, many of them see the messy traffic round with no visible police presence and just

let that dictate how they ride/drive...

  

[quake]

30 minutes ago, ezzra said:

Rants about dimwits and Burks driving/riding in Pattaya, ( mostly non Thai)

 

Wrong 95% or more. The Thai's are the bad people on the roads in Jomtien and pattaya.

you obviously don't ride or drive there much. I did 21 years. 

 

 

 

[richard_smith237]

42 minutes ago, quake said:

1 hour ago, ezzra said:

Rants about dimwits and Burks driving/riding in Pattaya, ( mostly non Thai)

 

Wrong 95% or more. The Thai's are the bad people on the roads in Jomtien and pattaya.

you obviously don't ride or drive there much. I did 21 years. 

 

Agreed...  It seems some posters have this strange confirmation bias thing going on where 'other foreigners' are concerned... 

They ignore Thai's doing whatever they do, and only when a foreigner does the same thing do they notice.... 

 

Perhaps because when they see a foreigner doing something wrong it triggers a stronger reaction and is thus more noticeable and more memorable... 

[jacko45k]

On 1/14/2024 at 12:52 PM, bkk6060 said:

I would argue the traffic is worse then ever.

No argument from me, clearly so.