I recently bought a Selfnavi GPS, mainly for the occasional forays wifey and I make into BKK.

Today I must have been still half asleep as I followed the 'turn right' advice without spotting the bus lane I was entering.

The cop did and I immediately spotted him on my tail and knew what I'd done.

He had a good laugh and actually said that I was the second farang who had followed GPS advice to take that road.

He started to write a ticket but accepted a reduced cash offer to save me a return trip to BKK to pick up my license. What a nice guy!

Switch on GPS, switch off brain

It's a little known fact that the BIB paid the Thai software developers a percentage to randomly send cars along bus lanes and the wrong way down one way systems when the English language option is used with Thai mapping.

I regularly have to ignore the routing on my GPS. I use a Garmin Edge 705, (cycle specific). If i use the option to avoid major roads, it loves to send me down roads that have new housing developments on them or dirt tracks that have "become" private and now have a fence across the path. But so far it's not caused me to lose money to the BIB.

It's a little known fact that the BIB paid the Thai software developers a percentage to randomly send cars along bus lanes and the wrong way down one way systems when the English language option is used with Thai mapping.

Yeah....RIGHT!!!