Commercial / Personal Vehicle

[WorldwideALOHA]

If a car is registered as a commercial vehicle, can the foreign Director of the company drive the car when it is not being used to transport customers?

Note: A Thai driver drives the car for all work related purposes / transport of customers.

[hkt83100]

If a car is registered as a commercial vehicle, can the foreign Director of the company drive the car when it is not being used to transport customers?

Note: A Thai driver drives the car for all work related purposes / transport of customers.

A friend of mine had a car (4 door Pickup) with advertising stickers for his business on. He was frequently stopped by the police and asked to show his work permit. No other problems about it. This was in Phuket about 5 years ago.

[Cuban]

Director of the company drive the car when it is not being used to transport customers?

If it is obvious that the vehicle is for transporting 'customers' it must be clear that the farang driver is neither transporting customers nor going to collect 'customers' as part of their job, although it is worded loosely acting as a taxi driver is one of the Thai national reserved occupations. Leave a pile of papers in there to show that the person is attending a meeting for example if they are worried about being able to prove such a situation.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

This is an interesting one. How would the situation be if the car in question was a taxi (the real taxi-meter-kind) with it's roof sign removed? Because my boyfriend's dad used to be a taxi driver, and they also used his taxi (which was his only car obviously) for trips up north, with the "taxi meter" sign removed. I was told this is done to show that the car is being used for a private journey.

There's two reasons why i'm asking. First, my work colleague had a taxi ride home last week where his driver was either drunk or overworked, or both, anyway stopped somewhere in the middle of nowhere to take a nap, meter running. My colleague complained and the guy just moved to the front passenger seat saying "here, you can drive, i won't". Now - COULD he have driven?? (He's farang). He ended up getting out and waiting beside that taxi for almost an hour, it's driver fast asleep, for another taxi to arrive.

Second, taxi companies usually rent out their cars to the drivers, they don't care too much if a driver has the necessary documents as long as they pay. Having a rather new Altis for 900-1,000 Baht/day is cheaper than from a rental car firm. And with the roof sign removed it's usable for private trips. BUT - can a farang legally drive it, too??

Best regards....

Thanh