Thai Tailgaters

[junkofdavid2]

...and before you "piss off" another motorist in Thailand it is worth remembering that they could legally be carrying a handgun!

I'm aware of that...

Once it was some guy either late teens or early twenties in a japanese "sports" car, (nothing overly expensive/fancy, just like one of those mazda miyata types..)

Second one was one of those semi-public commuter vans (the ones which are sorta like public transport but which have a definite start point and destination... but don't stop along the whole route the way buses do)

Third one was a brand new taxi (toyota altis)..

I admit that with one of them, the young guy in a "sporty" car, I was on the rightmost lane going a bit slow but that was because I had just made a U-turn and was about to move to the left lane like I should, but he tailgated like just within very few meters of the U-turn.. Duh! So I then decided to continue on that lane and step on my brakes... that's when he gave an angry honk and then overtook.

In doing your U turm surely it was your responsibility to join the traffic in that land at an "appropriate" speed without causing other drivers to alter speed or change course and within the speed limits ,therefore unless he was doing way over the limit or the gap you tried to get into was too small you were probably in the wrong. IMHO

So if it were the opposite scenario (someone else made the U-turn): Based on the logic of poster "Yabaa" above, is it appropriate for me, junkofdavid2, to do the tailgating in a similar situation?

I'll do the tailgating, but the U-turner would be in the wrong; correct?

Edited April 25, 2009 by junkofdavid2

[thaimate]

I dont suggest "stamping " on the brakes or getting into a road rage situation,.also dont give them any credit for doing it for a reason, they aint that smart !,. its just the thai way of driving,ive had to throw all western logic and good driving habits out the window in the 10 years i have lived here and im proud to say i now drive as bad as they do and i fit right in, i dont let anyone out, i drive as fast as i can and ignore all around me,

reminds me of me.

just came back from a stay with my daughter and her husband ,her comments were that her husband couldnt believe how crap my driving had become,and why do i constantly look both ways in a one way street :my reply was its because i drive in Thailand.

[PattayaParent]

There's no such thing as 'slow lanes' or 'fast lanes', the right hand lanes are for overtaking only.

When being tailgated just lift your foot off the accelerator and let the car slow down until the idiot behind you moves away.

[Heng]

I let them pass me and then I shoot out their tires.

[loong]

There's no such thing as 'slow lanes' or 'fast lanes', the right hand lanes are for overtaking only.

When being tailgated just lift your foot off the accelerator and let the car slow down until the idiot behind you moves away.

Can you please clarify for me, I understood that if there are at least 3 lanes, overtaking is allowed in ALL lanes.

[Lorin]

Hmm, I'm coming form the tailgater point of view, its piss me off when some pop driving his pick up on the right lane 2 times slower than me, I do flash with them from the distance, but most of them as someone earlier pointed out are "on "autopilot". If they are not moving in time I flash them constantly, it does help in most of the cases, in some they just indicate that will stay in that lane and I need to find my way around. I know that 180km/h is not the right speed even in Thailand, but who cares if police here gladly accept our offerings...:-)

[hansgti]

If its one thing thats needs a topic its the drivers who drive in the fast lane at 60 to 90 kmh slowing all the traffic down just cos he just did a u turn and forgot to move out of the way of faster moving vehicles.

You problay didnt see the honda flash you to get you to move out of the way.

This is thailand drive with the flow, dont act like a farang with a rulebook on his shoulder.

The last thing you should do is touch your brakes!

If you did that to me i would see it as a confrontational action, its stupid and dangerous at best, it could result in a nasty accident, all for what?

Dont forget your going slower, the car behind is showing you he is there and wants to get past thats all, show some maturity and class and get out of the way, no need to go looking for trouble , you will find it if you drive like that.

[onnut]

If its one thing thats needs a topic its the drivers who drive in the fast lane at 60 to 90 kmh slowing all the traffic down just cos he just did a u turn and forgot to move out of the way of faster moving vehicles.

You problay didnt see the honda flash you to get you to move out of the way.

This is thailand drive with the flow, dont act like a farang with a rulebook on his shoulder.

The last thing you should do is touch your brakes!

If you did that to me i would see it as a confrontational action, its stupid and dangerous at best, it could result in a nasty accident, all for what?

Dont forget your going slower, the car behind is showing you he is there and wants to get past thats all, show some maturity and class and get out of the way, no need to go looking for trouble , you will find it if you drive like that.

reading your post, and it makes sense, but sometimes I am tailgated when we are in heavy traffic and I am keeping up with traffic. there is no need to tailgate then to let someone know you are coming through because there is no room for anyone. and tailgating in heavy traffic that is moving at 110 KPH with all three or so lanes full is down right stupid and they will see my brake lights. i very rarly get tailgated though as I look in my mirrors alot and see them coming, and move out the way, or stay ahead of them. but if someone is driving up my butt and there is nowhere anyone can go then that makes my blood boil.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

I love to play games, and i love to race. Also i usually stay in the right line because the road surface is usually better (trucks stay left - mostly) and i do the speed limit - 120 km/h. So if such an idiot comes up behind me i usually keep my speed and wait until there is a slower vehicle in the other line. I get beside that one and slow down to match it's speed, effectively blocking Mr. Idiot. After i have done that for a few kilometers i get ahead of the slow vehicle, let Mr. Idiot pass us both and then start chasing HIM down. Because i'm as good a tailgater as anyone. And giving them a spoonful of their own medicine usually cures them.

Or, on the motorbike, i usually just speed up to the point they can't keep up

Best regards.....

Thanh

[Grant]

What I did was to piss them off by gently stepping on my brakes...

Completely wrong idea.

[hansgti]

reading your post, and it makes sense, but sometimes I am tailgated when we are in heavy traffic and I am keeping up with traffic. there is no need to tailgate then to let someone know you are coming through because there is no room for anyone. and tailgating in heavy traffic that is moving at 110 KPH with all three or so lanes full is down right stupid and they will see my brake lights. i very rarly get tailgated though as I look in my mirrors alot and see them coming, and move out the way, or stay ahead of them. but if someone is driving up my butt and there is nowhere anyone can go then that makes my blood boil.

I see this a lot as well, total complacency its usually performed by drivers who spend their entire working life on the road, pick ups with tin sheds on the back and new silver hiace minibus's which are now fitted a half decent d4d engine means they can do 120kmh with ease , they will do this to everyone in front of them because 8 times out of ten its ajarn or other thai civil servant who doesnt spend all day on the roads and doesnt want any danger nr them, the tailgater moves ahead 10ft , he's happy, docile thai civil servant is happy there out of harms way.

Avoid looking in your rear view mirror when they arrive is good advice, keep focused on the traffic in front, they will try anything to gain an extra cars length, often at the expense of the safe distance you left to the car in front of you, whilst they undertake and cut you up.

In my experience a bit of give and take is needed whilst driving here, im no angel on the roads and sometimes its karma to let them cut you up while you drop back a little without letting your blood boil, knowing next time i jump a 500m que and cut back in front of some one i just used that bit of karma to the max.

Edited April 26, 2009 by hansgti

[JetsetBkk]

... pulll up the handbrake a little so the brake lights come on, ...

I doubt that your brake lights will come on when you pull the handbrake, I have seen no car until now (driving since 1970) which would do this.

I have many times...

Please name one of them.

[JetsetBkk]

What I did was to piss them off by gently stepping on my brakes...

Completely wrong idea.

No. Completely right idea if - as he says - he wants to piss them off.

[yabaaaa]

...and before you "piss off" another motorist in Thailand it is worth remembering that they could legally be carrying a handgun!

I'm aware of that...

Once it was some guy either late teens or early twenties in a japanese "sports" car, (nothing overly expensive/fancy, just like one of those mazda miyata types..)

Second one was one of those semi-public commuter vans (the ones which are sorta like public transport but which have a definite start point and destination... but don't stop along the whole route the way buses do)

Third one was a brand new taxi (toyota altis)..

I admit that with one of them, the young guy in a "sporty" car, I was on the rightmost lane going a bit slow but that was because I had just made a U-turn and was about to move to the left lane like I should, but he tailgated like just within very few meters of the U-turn.. Duh! So I then decided to continue on that lane and step on my brakes... that's when he gave an angry honk and then overtook.

In doing your U turm surely it was your responsibility to join the traffic in that land at an "appropriate" speed without causing other drivers to alter speed or change course and within the speed limits ,therefore unless he was doing way over the limit or the gap you tried to get into was too small you were probably in the wrong. IMHO

So if it were the opposite scenario (someone else made the U-turn): Based on the logic of poster "Yabaa" above, is it appropriate for me, junkofdavid2, to do the tailgating in a similar situation?

I'll do the tailgating, but the U-turner would be in the wrong; correct?

you already admitted you were going too slow after your u turn, the point is to join traffic in that lane at the same speed its already travelling at in that lane. To do that you will need a big empty space in the traffic whihc you obviously didnt have. However I couldnt give a flying fig how u drive

[philipm]

haha the right lane is apparently the fast lane, but nothing is as it appear here.

anyways i did have a merc tailgating me at 180 the other day, he was a dick,

he was on the rightest lane on the highway, i was going at 140 or so,

and he was going 100. the persisent fag decided to keep his speed rather then speed up 5k's just to get infront of the person to his left, where the front was all free...

after flashing him and honking at him, he decided not to pass, so i took the oppertunity to pass when i could, and then stright after he decided to play a little tail get chase with me at 180km in the wet on the elevated highway. what an idoit, i eventually just relased my throttle.......didnt tap my brakes,

and i saw him slowing slowing slowing back down, till he reached 120. then after that i decided to move to give him the free lane if he wants to drive like a bigger idoit in the rain,

instead he decided to tailgate me through other lanes for no apparent reason just to piss me off, but

mind you i am an asshol_e driver to,

but i am also very calm person when driving so i dont get itemediated by it, so eventually i think he lost his eagerness to piss me off, and just drove past.

very funny.

[philipm]

mind you its very dangerous to. i shouldnt of even gone 180 in the rain, but hey i drive a modified truck built to handle it, but nevertheless dont do it.

Edited April 27, 2009 by philipm

[doubleduh]

Just move to the left lanes so I don't have to swirl around you. If you're overtaking with a difference in speed of a few km and someone's coming with 160+ no wonder you will be tailgated (if there are no lanes with a free hole on the left at least, that's usually faster although you have to anticipate and watch out a bit more)... But tailgating when there's no alternatives to move or speed up for the car in front is pretty useless I agree.

[Gary A]

It used to irritate me a lot. I finally decided that most tailgaters are indeed idiots but that there may be a few who have a good reason to be in a hurry. In either case, I pull as far to the left as possible and let them pass me. I DON'T like having vehicles that close behind me. It makes me nervous.

[t.s]

Who do some people soften up the term bribe into a something less offensive term like tea money?

It's a bribe. I refuse to call it anything else.

who said the word bribe was offensive to begin with?

[t.s]

haha the right lane is apparently the fast lane, but nothing is as it appear here.

anyways i did have a merc tailgating me at 180 the other day, he was a dick,

he was on the rightest lane on the highway, i was going at 140 or so,

and he was going 100. the persisent fag decided to keep his speed rather then speed up 5k's just to get infront of the person to his left, where the front was all free...

after flashing him and honking at him, he decided not to pass, so i took the oppertunity to pass when i could, and then stright after he decided to play a little tail get chase with me at 180km in the wet on the elevated highway. what an idoit, i eventually just relased my throttle.......didnt tap my brakes,

and i saw him slowing slowing slowing back down, till he reached 120. then after that i decided to move to give him the free lane if he wants to drive like a bigger idoit in the rain,

instead he decided to tailgate me through other lanes for no apparent reason just to piss me off, but

mind you i am an asshol_e driver to,

but i am also very calm person when driving so i dont get itemediated by it, so eventually i think he lost his eagerness to piss me off, and just drove past.

very funny.

you write and drive like a 12 year old

[Searcher25]

If its one thing thats needs a topic its the drivers who drive in the fast lane at 60 to 90 kmh slowing all the traffic down just cos he just did a u turn and forgot to move out of the way of faster moving vehicles.

You problay didnt see the honda flash you to get you to move out of the way.

This is thailand drive with the flow, dont act like a farang with a rulebook on his shoulder.

The last thing you should do is touch your brakes!

If you did that to me i would see it as a confrontational action, its stupid and dangerous at best, it could result in a nasty accident, all for what?

Dont forget your going slower, the car behind is showing you he is there and wants to get past thats all, show some maturity and class and get out of the way, no need to go looking for trouble , you will find it if you drive like that.

reading your post, and it makes sense, but sometimes I am tailgated when we are in heavy traffic and I am keeping up with traffic. there is no need to tailgate then to let someone know you are coming through because there is no room for anyone. and tailgating in heavy traffic that is moving at 110 KPH with all three or so lanes full is down right stupid and they will see my brake lights. i very rarly get tailgated though as I look in my mirrors alot and see them coming, and move out the way, or stay ahead of them. but if someone is driving up my butt and there is nowhere anyone can go then that makes my blood boil.

Onnut,

Don't mean to be rude to you, but you are in Thailand now! Traffic density is probably a lot higher than what you are used to. What you think is tail-gaiting is simply another person's view of not taking anymore room than they need to. Bear with me and think about how bad the traffic jams would be if everybody took more room than what is absolutely needed? If one assumes a car length of 3m with 2m separation, 200 cars can fit into a 1 km lane. Increase that separation to 5m and only 125 cars can fit into the same lane.

By increasing the separation, between cars, from 2m to 5m, a 5 km traffic jam becomes 8 km traffic jam. Its all about using the available space as efficiently as possible.

I have driven a lot in big cities and in rural areas. When traffic densities increase people automatically decrease the space they use and decrease their expectation on what they believe to be the appropriate space for others to use. They don't calculate the differences, they just know its the right thing to do. Talking to friends and acquaintances, I find that most conflicts about tail-gating result from different expectations of people used to city driving versus rural driving.

I would suggest that the absolutely last thing you want to do is get into a fight (to the death) over the appropriate length of traffic separation between vehicles. IMHO rule #1 of driving in Thailand, and many other countries in the world, is to cooperate, not compete, with other drivers. When in Rome.....

If all else fails and you know that you are not obstructing traffic due to you driving slower than the prevailing traffic speed in your lane - then just don't look in the rearview mirror

[philipm]

T.S.,

haha you make me laugh,

Let me express some more... LOL LOL LOL.

You would have no idea how I drive, I would drive circles around you,

Haha, anyways mate everyone has established already that faggots who like to talk bull shit aren’t wanted.

So I hope your next post is a little wiser.

and keep it related to the topic.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi

@Searcher25

Tailgating does not mean standing bumper-to-bumper in a traffic jam. What this is about is driving at higher speeds on essentially free roads and having the one behind you keep inches from your rear bumper at, say, 100+ km/h speed. I experience this all too often, specially those naughty Fortuners who always think the road was built for them alone.

Regarding the traffic jams, if everyone would ride a motorbike there wasn't any traffic jams. I believe that Bangkok alone wastes more fuel per day than whole Germany uses per year due to the fact that Bangkokians just have to drive every five meter trips with their cars and we all know the results - endless jams every day, 24/7. When i snake my way through that gridlock on my bike i sometimes look inside the cars - about 90% of them have one single person in them. Now replace all those with motorbikes and your 200 people that previously occupied one kilometer will comfortably fit into 60 meters of one-lane road with safe distance between them.

People here think wrong - they think "i can't get to work by motorbike, by the time i'm there i'm all sweaty and black from pollution". However if ALL would participate there would be no traffic jams, everyone got to work so quick that they wouldn't sweat at all and also the pollution would be so much less.

Best regards....

Thanh

[Heng]

Uh, yeah, and how would riding a bike to work block out the sun and the rain?

[BigSnake]

Best to pull over first chance you see and let the Tailgaters go, there are enough bad drivers out there already, no need for a bad angry tailgaters. You maybe in the right(having the right of way) but if you let this tailgater make you lose it and you get into an accident, you could be DEAD RIGHT!! No pun Intented!! be careful, stay safe, be cool, let the fool pass, tailgaters are like bad stomach GAS it (they) will PASS. Pun Intented!!

[Tyke]

I've experienced around 3 occasions where I've been tailgated pretty closely.

A few things:

1) What is their common objective to tailgate? Is it to try to "push" me to go faster or get out of the way, or to show that they're "faster" than me? (I wasn't exactly 'slow' by the way, around 60 to 90 kph; and there were other available lanes to easily overtake)

2) How do you deal with them?

What I did was to piss them off by gently stepping on my brakes... it usually results in an "aggressive" honk but then they change lane immediately and look for someone else to tailgate.

How about you?

In Thailand you should always keep left, ie. don't drive down any lane except the left lane unless you are overtaking. It seems illogical when overtaking is allowed in any lane, but the police can stop you and fine you if you stay in the centre lane or right lane when there is no need. I was told that by my Thai partner. I assume you were tailgated when you were not in the left lane.

[Jim's_a_Thai_Fox]

On dual carriageways, I don't tailgate, I just overtake on the inside. Generally speaking, the overtaking lane is in a lot better condition as less trucks use them and a lot of road users prefer to remain on the 'outside lane' even when not overtaking.

[PattayaParent]

There's no such thing as 'slow lanes' or 'fast lanes', the right hand lanes are for overtaking only.

When being tailgated just lift your foot off the accelerator and let the car slow down until the idiot behind you moves away.

Can you please clarify for me, I understood that if there are at least 3 lanes, overtaking is allowed in ALL lanes.

Overtaking is only allowed in the right hand lane and 'undertaking' ie. on the left is only allowed when a car in the right lane is slowing down or stopped in order to turn right.

Hence when there are 3 lanes the car in the middle lane can overtake the car in the inside lane but not the car in the outside lane, and the car in the outside lane can overtake the car in the middle lane.

In either case they must both move to the far left (inside) lane in order not to obstruct the traffic flow.

[Amir]

Day time just turn your lights on. You won't need to brake as it might be dangerous and they will think you brake as red light will be on. You will see in the mirror that it makes them brake and get some more distance between you and them... When the line on the side is free just switch....

[loong]

There's no such thing as 'slow lanes' or 'fast lanes', the right hand lanes are for overtaking only.

When being tailgated just lift your foot off the accelerator and let the car slow down until the idiot behind you moves away.

Can you please clarify for me, I understood that if there are at least 3 lanes, overtaking is allowed in ALL lanes.

Overtaking is only allowed in the right hand lane and 'undertaking' ie. on the left is only allowed when a car in the right lane is slowing down or stopped in order to turn right.

Hence when there are 3 lanes the car in the middle lane can overtake the car in the inside lane but not the car in the outside lane, and the car in the outside lane can overtake the car in the middle lane.

In either case they must both move to the far left (inside) lane in order not to obstruct the traffic flow.

Do you know this for a fact or is it just your opinion that that is how it should be?

I'm pretty sure that somewhere lost in one of my backups I have a copy of the Thai transport department's "Highway code" and that it says that if there are 2 or more other lanes travelling in the same direction that your can overtake on the left or the right. The transport department used to have a website, but any links or searches come up with nothing now.

Does anybody know if the dept of Transport has a functioning website or has it been merged somewhere else.