My condo is 50 metres just off Naklua Road. For the last 3 days ambulances have been going past at an astonishing rate. I seemed to be getting woken up every 30- 40 minutes in the night time, the days aren't much better.

16 hours ago, cynic1 said:

It's a bit like Australia at this time of year where the authorities state the severe penalties at the max but never ever enforce them.

Take this Thai current crack down article where it states and please allow me to highlight key words in bold:

" 'could' face up to one year in prison, fines ranging from 5,000 to 20,000 ...with a mandatory driver's licence suspension of at least six months or even revocation. ... Cases of bodily or mental injury 'can' lead to one to five years in prison and fines between 20,000 and 100,000"

You see it is always "could" or "can". But both Au and Thailand never state " it will be"?

Nonsense, if you get caught driving after a few beers or the night before, you will be walking home and will have a hard time avoiding court and are lucky not to lose your license. Most people lose their licence (depending on the severity) for a minimum of 3 months and pay a hefty fine

19 hours ago, cynic1 said:

It's a bit like Australia at this time of year where the authorities state the severe penalties at the max but never ever enforce them.

Take this Thai current crack down article where it states and please allow me to highlight key words in bold:

" 'could' face up to one year in prison, fines ranging from 5,000 to 20,000 ...with a mandatory driver's licence suspension of at least six months or even revocation. ... Cases of bodily or mental injury 'can' lead to one to five years in prison and fines between 20,000 and 100,000"

You see it is always "could" or "can". But both Au and Thailand never state " it will be"?

Load of rubbish !! Australia does not have the level of corupption Thailand has !!! you can get away with muder here if you have the cash !!!

Hang on a minute, we have to share the roads with 'drivers' who have bought their license on-line, have no experience and have not been drinking !

19 hours ago, VBF said:

That surprises me - Australian friends have told me that Oz is similar to UK. In UK, the law and the severe penalties are the same all year round.

The only difference in UK is that the police are looking out more keenly for likely drunks and will use any possible justification to stop and breathalyse.

Same applies to drug driving.

Personally i have no problem with it - I KNOW my judgement is impaired after drinking alcohol!

My response lacked description. Sorry. I should have said they will fine them and impose licence penalties but usually do so at the lower end of the scale of the fine or licence cancellation range whether or not it's Xmas, New year or any other time unless they are multi repeat offenders.

On 12/30/2025 at 8:58 AM, motdaeng said:

if they actually enforced the rules strictly, without any exceptions, 365 days a year … that would be great!

what is the BAC limit in Thailand? It doesn't say in the article. In america it's 0.08%

1 hour ago, corepuncher said:

what is the BAC limit in Thailand? It doesn't say in the article. In america it's 0.08%

Mine is zero everywhere and in every country I go.

A post with an inflammatory slang comment has been removed. @Aussie999

1 hour ago, corepuncher said:

what is the BAC limit in Thailand? It doesn't say in the article. In america it's 0.08%

.05% if you have a 5 yr licence.

.02% if you do not.

On 12/31/2025 at 4:45 AM, smedly said:

drink driving is illegal

No, it isn't, driving with a BAC over the prescribed limits is what is illegal.

On 12/31/2025 at 11:08 AM, 10baht said:

How will this work without 1000 baht bills?

It won't happen but, just in case ir did, there are/will be other cash notes,

On 12/31/2025 at 3:22 PM, kwilco said:

it is down to the nature of the traffic and the demography – for instance, heavy commercial vehicles are banned over holidays

Are they...banned from where? And what effect do you think that would have when the vast majority of road deaths involve motorcycles, not commercial vehicles?

On 12/31/2025 at 4:45 AM, smedly said:

The Court of Justice has warned motorists against driving under the influence during the New Year's holiday, highlighting the severity of penalties involved

this like saying drink driving other times is ok

No, it is not, they are just emphasising, for the forgetful, that the penalties are there.

On 12/31/2025 at 8:24 AM, quake said:

Yes .

it's just totally normal and excepted in Thai culture.

To get pissed out your face and drive home. as fast a possible.

No one cares at all.

Just shame full.

total and utter racist nonsense

2 hours ago, corepuncher said:

what is the BAC limit in Thailand? It doesn't say in the article. In america it's 0.08%

In Thailand, the general blood alcohol limit is 0.05% (50 mg/dL), but it's much stricter for newer drivers, those under 20, or with temporary licenses, who face a 0.02% (20 mg/dL) limit, with penalties including fines, jail time, and license suspension for violations

11 hours ago, MikeandDow said:

Load of rubbish !! Australia does not have the level of corupption Thailand has !!! you can get away with muder here if you have the cash !!!

Really - can you quote any confirmed instances of that?

7 minutes ago, kwilco said:

total and utter racist nonsense

Hear, hear!

10 hours ago, Humpy said:

Hang on a minute, we have to share the roads with 'drivers' who have bought their license on-line, have no experience and have not been drinking !

Nonsense - any driver that has "bought his licence online" without appearing at a LTD office does not have a real licence. If that were true, no one would ever go to the LTD for their licence and subject themselves to the invariably chaotic scenes there.

Inflammatory posts have been removed, @kwilco :

• Be polite and respectful to other users.

• Avoid flaming, trolling, or stalking other members.

There is a huge amount of misinformation (and misunderstanding) in this thread, much of which simply highlights how poorly informed many foreigners in Thailand are about road safety in the Kingdom.

To start with, accident numbers during the so-called “7 dangerous days” are usually the same as, or slightly lower than, the rest of the year. Singling out one issue and presenting it as a “solution” to Thailand’s long-standing road safety problems is neither logical nor supported by evidence. These problems have existed for decades and cannot be fixed by simplistic explanations.

Road safety is complex. It is built around multiple interdependent factors, and when any of them are ignored, the result is predictably high crash and injury rates.

Injuries themselves are typically classified as:

• Minor

• Serious

• Fatal

To understand road safety properly, you need a range of statistics, not cherry-picked numbers. Meaningful indicators include:

• Deaths per 1 million inhabitants

• Serious injuries per 1 million inhabitants

• Minor injuries per 1 million inhabitants

• Deaths per 10 billion vehicle kilometres

• Deaths per 100,000 registered vehicles

• Registered vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants

Without this broader context, comparisons are largely meaningless.

The Five Pillars of Road Safety (The “5 Es”)

Effective road safety systems are built on five core pillars. You cannot pick and choose between them — all must be addressed together. Having a driving licence does not make someone an expert in road safety, particularly not in Thailand.

For more than 30 years Thailand has produced various “Road Safety Action Plans” based on these principles (with limited success), but without addressing all five, meaningful improvement is unlikely.

1. Education

This goes far beyond a one-off driving test. Road users must be taught how to share the road safely, and that education must continue throughout a driver’s life.
Countries like the UK ran long-term public safety campaigns in the 1960s and 70s — smart, memorable, non-condescending ads that genuinely changed behaviour (many will remember the “elephant in the fog”).
In Thailand, the first group needing serious education is arguably the police themselves.

2. Enforcement

Enforcement is essential, but Thailand faces the added challenge of entrenched corruption, bribery, and selective application of the law. No amount of new legislation helps if laws are not reasonable, consistently applied, and supported by a competent legal system. Police and courts must be properly trained and insulated from corruption for enforcement to work.

3. Engineering

This is the most commonly ignored pillar when people criticise Thai road safety. It has two major components:

A. Vehicle Engineering
Modern vehicle safety is a combination of:

• Passive safety (seatbelts, airbags, vehicle structure)

• Active safety (braking, handling, stability control, traction control)

These systems are now deeply interconnected and heavily computerised. Examples include:

• ABS

• Electronic Stability Control (ESC)

• Traction control

• Side-impact protection

• Airbags

• Overall vehicle dynamics and reliability

Roadworthiness inspections are vital — yet in Thailand they are largely unenforced.

B. Road Engineering
Road design and construction play a massive role in safety:

• Junctions, bridges, camber, drainage, and surface quality

• Barriers and medians (e.g. Armco), and removal of roadside hazards

• Clearing vegetation and billboards that obstruct sightlines

• Proper use of road markings, signage, bollards, and speed control

• Traffic calming and forgiving road design

• Separation of different road users where appropriate

A good example is U-turns: they exist not because drivers demand them, but because the road design allows them. This is fundamentally an engineering and cost-cutting issue, not just a driver behaviour issue.

4. Emergency Response

What happens after a crash often determines whether someone lives or dies. The time between injury and treatment is critical.
Thailand still has no effective universal emergency response system. Ambulance standards vary wildly, equipment is inconsistent, and first responders may range from volunteers in pickup trucks to partially equipped ambulances. Paramedic training is often inadequate.

5. Evaluation

Finally, effective systems measure what works and what doesn’t. In countries with mature road safety frameworks, every major road project or safety campaign is evaluated for its impact on accidents, injuries, local communities, and the environment.
Thailand may nominally have such bodies, but in practice their impact is negligible. Statistics are incomplete, poorly collected, and often fail to align with international standards. Road safety policy is too often reduced to baseless political statements rather than evidence-based action.

 

In short, Thailand’s road safety problems are systemic. Focusing on isolated issues — especially during holiday periods — may make for easy headlines, but it does nothing to address the real causes.

 

On 12/31/2025 at 8:17 AM, hotchilli said:

Depending on status and connections.... courts will get serious ?

I will let you know, wife's granddaughter's partner got caught last night 160mg of alcohol in his blood, spent a night in the clink, along with 10 others, they got 16 altogether, he was out on a 20 000-baht bail this morning

I think he will appear in court tomorrow. Also, no driving license, and I think no crash helmet, so they say he is looking at a 13000 baht fine, which for a Thai rice farmer/laborer, that will hurt.

So, I have heard they got heavy last night, he got caught at one of our main area attractions, the Lopburi Passak Dam.

So, in this area they are trying, every year at the dam, they are a few hundred people celebrating the new year, it was a good place to catch people.

On 12/31/2025 at 10:05 PM, chondan said:

That is actually true. Years ago I put one hundred baht for 426. I did not win. I think it was 434.

Well, I hate to state this, but you are not alone, most likely :-(

On 12/31/2025 at 1:03 PM, cynic1 said:

It's a bit like Australia at this time of year where the authorities state the severe penalties at the max but never ever enforce them.

Take this Thai current crack down article where it states and please allow me to highlight key words in bold:

" 'could' face up to one year in prison, fines ranging from 5,000 to 20,000 ...with a mandatory driver's licence suspension of at least six months or even revocation. ... Cases of bodily or mental injury 'can' lead to one to five years in prison and fines between 20,000 and 100,000"

You see it is always "could" or "can". But both Au and Thailand never state " it will be"?

Hey, in many cases it up to the courts to impose fines, and that depends on severity, and how many times you been charged, etc, also, holiday season, double demerits/fines, with fines, demerits are all year.

19 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Really - can you quote any confirmed instances of that?

There are several Instances if you care to do some research first one springs to mind is red bull Reports from human rights organizations and news outlets have also highlighted instances where police allegedly released a murder suspect in exchange for cash and pressured the victim's family to accept compensation and close the case. http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/UA-037-2006/

1 hour ago, MikeandDow said:

21 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Really - can you quote any confirmed instances of that?

There are several Instances if you care to do some research first one springs to mind is red bull

You claimed that "you can get away with muder [sic] here if you have the cash"; the onus is on you to support your claim, not for others to "do some research". There was no murder in the Red Bull case.

Your link to a 20-year old case has no confirmed conclusion.

23 hours ago, kickstart said:

I will let you know, wife's granddaughter's partner got caught last night 160mg of alcohol in his blood, spent a night in the clink, along with 10 others, they got 16 altogether, he was out on a 20 000-baht bail this morning

I think he will appear in court tomorrow. Also, no driving license, and I think no crash helmet, so they say he is looking at a 13000 baht fine, which for a Thai rice farmer/laborer, that will hurt.

So, I have heard they got heavy last night, he got caught at one of our main area attractions, the Lopburi Passak Dam.

So, in this area they are trying, every year at the dam, they are a few hundred people celebrating the new year, it was a good place to catch people.

Update, he appeared in court today, put on bail again, I think it was 15 000 baht for a month to appear again, then it looks like he will go to prison, for between 3-6 months, plus a fine.

So, it looks if the authorities are getting heavy this year, good job he was not involved in an accident, that would a long-time doing porridge.

Note, the family is running around like headless chickens, trying to find money for the bail, and how partner and stepdaughter will manage when he is doing time .

14 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

You claimed that "you can get away with muder [sic] here if you have the cash"; the onus is on you to support your claim, not for others to "do some research". There was no murder in the Red Bull case.

Your link to a 20-year old case has no confirmed conclusion.

murder is the unlawful, unjustifiable killing of one human being by another,

does not matter how long the case was !! if you have cash in this counrty you can get away with murder

Another 2 cases

Northern Irish guy hooked up with a 19 year old bar girl on Soi Buakhai in Pattaya..Something went wrong and he stabbed her to death then dismembered her body, stuffing her parts into trash bags, then a dumpster. He grabbed a taxi to the airport, still covered in blood. Driver tipped off his dispatcher and police were waiting for him. I forget how long he was held, then suddenly before any trial, deported back to N. Ireland. No conviction of record of any crime, walked out of the Belfast Airport a free man. Never any confirmed facts but rumor was he was ruled incompetent to stand trial. Thailand claimed not to have the mental health facilities to treat him. No body knows how much money changed hands but it was said that a dozen new pick-ups suddenly appeared in the victim's family members driveways.

Crazy Norwegian body builder with a very aggressive history stormed into the adjoining Phuket hotel room which was occupied by a newly married Indian couple on their honeymoon. He stabbed the husband to death and assaulted the wife. Case hung in limbo a long time, then the murderer suddenly was back in Norway, a free man. Never a plausible explanation. It's suspected the "not fit for trial" loophole was used again.

Further discussion and cases

https://www.reddit.com/r/Thailand/comments/1oc996w/anyone_know_what_happened_to_this_guy_he_killed/

On 12/31/2025 at 10:04 AM, Chongalulu said:

They "SAY" they’re doing it. As with everything else what’s said and what happens are entirely different things. There’s been tantamount to the same thing said every year - every year nothing changes. It’s simply a PR stunt.

What make you think it’s happening this time?

It looks good,

Drove back from Korat yesterday and cops everywhere in back roads of Korat and cops on bridges with speed cameras everywhere, all the way to Huahin where they were even on the canal Rd.

I never knew they had so many cops.

One thing I noticed was a lot of cars were waived straight through, they were breathalising quite a few though.

We were waived through all, my wife was driving, they just asked where you were going.

The wife never took much notice of speed cameras even though the GPS was beeping when speeding.

I don't know if all the cameras work or if the signs everywhere were fakes.

Maybe tickets coming in the mail

Some speeds were down to 30km in the villages and traffic was better behaved but still many loonies overtaking at high speed and bikes with no lights and no helmets in the villages at nights.

Was there 5 days, happy to be back in one piece, drug and alcohol free driving all the time.

6 hours ago, kiwikeith said:

rove back from Korat yesterday and cops everywhere in back roads of Korat and cops on bridges with speed cameras everywhere, all the way to Huahin where they were even on the canal Rd.

I never knew they had so many cops.

One thing I noticed was a lot of cars were waived straight through, they were breathalising quite a few though.

We were waived through all, my wife was driving, they just asked where you were going.

The wife never took much notice of speed cameras even though the GPS was beeping when speeding.

I don't know if all the cameras work or if the signs everywhere were fakes.

Maybe tickets coming in the mail

Some speeds were down to 30km in the villages and traffic was better behaved but still many loonies overtaking at high speed and bikes with no lights and no helmets in the villages at nights.

Was there 5 days, happy to be back in one piece, drug and alcohol free driving all the time.

What you describe happens on Thai roads every holiday – NY and Songkhran.... - it is proved to be pretty much insignificant, as there has been no change for the past quarter of a century.

basically, all they do is catch a few offenders who stroll into their net – they do nothing to prevent the offences as they have already been committed