Tour Bus Riding

[Thanyaburi Mac]

Below a short blurb I did some years back when working here on the Indochinese Refugee Program.  At the time we had Thai and Expat staff travelling all over the place from the North to the NE, east out to the Aran to Trat area, and down south to Songkhla.

Also attached the patterns of common accidents and one sample of a not-too-bad accident on the hills going up towards Muak Lek, about Km 130 or so, Saraburi Province.

Oh, yes, for those not all that familiar with Thai tour buses, the toilet is in the rear of the bus, reference the final sentence below.

Mac

EMBASSY OF THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Bangkok, Thailand                    6 June 1980

TO: REF/KEG Staff

FROM: Mac

SUBJ: Tour Bus Riding

If you do find the need to ride the tour buses, I strongly recommend the following selection of seating:

Daytime: two-thirds of the way back on the left hand side of the bus;

Nighttime: two-thirds of the way back on the right hand side of the bus;

NEVER sit in the front or the rear.

The rationale, such as it is, is that in the daytime buses will be passing other vehicles at random. In the event that the bus is unable to pull ahead in time to get completely back into the left-hand lane of traffic, the oncoming vehicle, inevitably a 10-wheel truck, will either hit head-on with the bus, or sideswipe the right side of the bus, doing grievous bodily harm to the passengers sitting on the right side.

For the night buses, things change; there are relatively few collisions with oncoming traffic. What can ruin your whole evening on the night bus is a 10-wheeler or logging truck broken down and parked half on the pavement on the left-hand side of the road. The standard signal used for warning other drivers of the hazard of a standing obstacle ahead is a small clump of brush placed up to 50 feet behind the stationary vehicle; no warning lights. So, what happens is that the driver of your bus sees theclump of brush too late and either runs directly into the rear of the obstacle, or he swerves to the right, just missing the corner of the obstacle with the front of the bus, but wiping out the entire left side, and those passengers sitting there.

Reasons for not sitting in the front are obvious; the rear less so. Be sure, however, if another vehicle hits the rear of your bus, there will be quite a mess, literally.

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[Larryst]

Thanks for the information. I might be going to Pattaya in a couple weeks. Usually when i go I ask for a chair downstairs in the middle of the bus. Also a lot of times the seats are already taken. But, with a drunken or a half a sleep thai man driving a 10 wheeler, no one is safe