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British Tourist Found Dead & Naked off Phuket Beach After Mysterious Encounter
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Which is more common in actual use: นอนหลับฝันดี / ฝันดี or ราตรีสวัสดิ์ ? -
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Trump Urges NATO Allies to Dramatically Boost Defense Spending to 5%
War monger or people need to support the USA "defense" industry? -
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Brit expats in Thailand warned of scams targeting bank accounts
This place meaning planet Earth? -
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Essential Driving Rules and Etiquette in Thailand
Thai Road History and Culture If you know nothing about the past, you can’t learn from it – QED Dick. Thailand is in love with the automobile especially the pickup, SUV and the motorcycle - it is a transitional society; rapidly changing from agricultural to industrial. Thailand has a motor industry that consistently ranks around 10th in the top twenty of world producers... That’s about the same as the UK. The class system and road safety - Thailand has its own peculiar problems. Sakdina is the archaic cast system that dominated Thailand until the 20th century. It still hasn’t been fully swept away and it manifests itself in many aspects of Thai life, including the roads. Thailand has one of the world’s most unequal societies, and even its roads have a rigid hierarchy, with the poor far more likely to be killed in accidents than the well-off and well-connected.[1] The concept that any race or nation has a greater proportion of stupid drivers is just not valid. The ability to drive safely and responsibly isn't determined by race or nationality. Factors like education, experience, and adherence to traffic laws road and vehicle engineering play a much larger role in determining driving competence than any racial or national identity. It's important to approach such matters with objectivity and avoid generalizations that can perpetuate stereotypes. The reality is that other societies are simply better at stopping their stupid ones from being stupid. There may a lack of enforcement and training, different driving conditions and customs, but to dismiss all Thai drivers as innately or racially stupid is really showing a profound lack of understanding of both Thailand AND driving. The term “culture” is often used by racists to support these sort of generalisations and stereotypes, but it isn’t culture it’s a racist cliché. Culture means growth, it’s not static, it changes all the time but it often has roots deep in the past. Sweeping generalisations based on race/nationality just don’t cut the mustard. Driving Habits in Thailand When it comes to actually driving, there is a lot of behaviour that is unfamiliar to foreigners; the key is to adjust to it as soon as possible. E.G. - flashing lights, horn and hazard lights; these are indeed often used in circumstances that differ from “the West”. However bear in mind that they all have well-defined general functions, these are just regional variations. Internationally - Horn and flashing lights are to indicate your presence and the hazards are to indicate that your vehicle is stationary in a “hazardous” position. All other uses, West or East are in fact just implied or inferences that we draw from the particular situation we are in at the time. Then there are the tales of U-turns, traffic going the wrong way on dual carriageways and all those other “crazy” things that are accepted as everyday driving over here - no lights, no bodywork, no wheels, no looking, whatever... it really doesn’t take that long is a modicum of intelligence to work out and adjust to what’s happening or going to happen - if you fail to adjust, “som nam naa” - your journey may well come to an abrupt end. Some knowledge of Thai culture can help explain some of this. The expression “it’s Thai culture” itself has to be treated with some circumspection. It’s a get-out for all sorts of ills and quirks. In practice, it’s usually just a cover up for someone’s own latent prejudice or even racism. Just a justification for a prejudice. However, a background knowledge on how certain aspects of Thai cultural or religious life connects to driving helps to understand and anticipate some of the foibles you are likely to encounter on the road. I’ve mentioned the Thai acceptance of corruption in authorities. I’ve already mentioned the iconography of symbols used on vehicles and the superstitions, icons and emblems on trucks etc. but how does this affect every day driving? Many dismiss this as frivolous or pointless and then hang a St Christopher medal on the rear view mirror. In Western countries we have grown up with the car for over ¾ of a century, most of Westerners are 3rd 4th or even 5th generation drivers. Driving is accepted as an integral part of life. Our “national psyches” are geared to this, as are our road systems and behaviour on them. Some of the systems we are used to can date back to those great road-builders the Romans (who it seems probably drove on the left). In Europe before the arrival of the motorcar, we already used a lot of roads and had established some basic highway codes and practices - the roundabout has its roots in C18th Britain, born out of the need to manoeuvre horse and carriages in front of rich housing projects. Driving on the left, which was legally established in the early C19th in the UK, is said to stem from the way we handled horses. Driving on the right was introduced by Napoleon who needed this at least in part to move large cargo carts along the roads of France. Thailand is different. In Thailand, ask any car driver if their parents had a car and the vast majority will answer in the negative; mass motorised transport is a relatively recent thing here, it has taken hold rapidly together with Thailand’s rampant industrialisation. Including a huge protected motor industry. The number of motor vehicles has leapt from 2 million in 1981 to 27.5 million in 2010. By now the total is over 40 million over half being motorcycles. Before this, the main form of transport in the Kingdom was by river. There were of course some hand or animal pulled carts but these were very localised and in much smaller numbers than Europe where an elaborate road system had existed alongside rivers for centuries. Many of the roads in Thailand were built or improved in the C20th for military purposes by the Japanese and then the US in the 50s and 60s. The first “real” road in Thailand was Charoen Krung Road, built in 1860s by Rama IV and helped to service the European quarter in Bangkok. This marked the beginning of the change from river to road transport. Thailand currently only has less than 200 km of genuine motorway (compared to 3700 km of motorway in UK), but has announced plans to extend that to nearly 5000 km; a rather controversial plan that was first conceived in the 1990s. The Old Highways Most of the old highways connecting BKK to the rural cities were built with US aid during the Vietnam war in the 50s, 60s and early 70s to supply its military bases and to facilitate the movement of troops and arms. There were 4 main highways in Thailand that were developed largely after the war into the 1950s. mostly with American help although the chief Thai engineer was trained in the UK. 1. Phahonyothin Road (Highway 1)[2], - Bkk to Tachileik, Burma – started before war. 2. Mittraphap Road (Highway 2)[3] - the first Thai highway to use both asphalt and concrete. It received the name "Thanon Mittraphap" on 20 February 1957. 3. Sukhumvit (Highway 3)[4] – Bkk to Cambodia. Phra Bisal Sukhumvit was trained in the USA and was responsible for starting the highway system in the 1930s and 40s. he was responsible for a rapid increase in Thailand's road infrastructure during the 1930s and 1940s. Not a supporter of the Japanese, he also developed a few roads in Thailand during WW2. It was probably the Japanese who consolidated the “drive on the left” rule for Thailand. 4. Phetkasem Road (Highway 4)[5]. – Longest in Thailand finished 1950; the A4 was finished in the 1950s under the charge of an English trained Thai engineer It's important to understand the history and culture of a country to understand their roads, and the blinkered lack of understanding by so many on this thread goes a long way to explaining why so many foreigners are so useless as drivers - they simply don't understand what is going on around them - -
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Thailand airports boost biometrics for faster service times
I'm in and out regularly - it was only this last time (just before Christmas) that I was directed to the Auto-Immigration-Gate. The previous time, a month before hand, the exit procedure was 'human'.... -
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Essential Driving Rules and Etiquette in Thailand
I got my last 5 year just before Covid - originally I got all my renewals in Chonburi - so I guess it varies from area to area. - not unusual for Thai govt departments. -
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Essential Driving Rules and Etiquette in Thailand
I got my last 5 year just before Covid - originally I got all my renewals in Chonburi - so I guess it varies from area to area. - not unusual for Thai govt departments. -
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