Left Turn Only At Roundabouts From Today

[phuketrex]

Todays' Gazette!>>>

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Left turn only at roundabouts

PHUKET : As part of Phukets' new transport plans to speed up traffic flows, ease congestion and reduce road traffic accidents the Phuket Land Transport Office has announced through a Press Release that as of today all traffic is only permitted to turn left at all roundabouts on Phuket.

Effectively this means the end to traffic build ups at roundabouts as there will be no traffic coming from the right to give way to and all vehicles arriving at a roundabout will be able to turn left immediately without having to come to a stop.

Should a driver wish to go straight on at a roundabout they now have to turn left then make a U-turn and then turn left again when they get back to the roundabout. Making a right turn will take a little longer as it will mean turning left, doing a U-turn, turning left at the roundabout again and making another U-turn and finally turning left again to complete the right turn. The inconvenience of having to drive a little further to negotiate a roundabout will be far outweighed by the advantage of being able to drive continuously.

Phuket Provincial Police Commander Dakep Pongitant welcomed the innovative move citing that fewer officers would be required at roundabouts on the island releasing them to serve the community better in other areas.

The Phuket Governor said "This is a world first. Everybody can now negotiate roundabouts quickly without having to stop and can get to where they are going quicker. We are the first to do this and I expect more Provinces and eventually the whole of Thailand to follow. It is so simple. Why has nobody thought of doing this before?"

Our roving reporter out at the Heroines Monument roundabout early this morning reported traffic flowing uninterrupted with happy drivers smiling and waving to each other.

-Lirpa Loofnipong

Phuket, Thailand

08:09 local time (GMT +7)

Edited April 1, 2010 by phuketrex

[esbkk]

Right - sounds like 1/4 to me ...

[Chaimai]

Lirpa Loof - chai mai ?

You will have to do a LOT better than that

[Ping]

555 nice one! But let's face it, would anyone be all that surprised if they actually tried to implement such a rule?

[fiddlehead]

Yeah right!

And what's the date again?

[MyphuketLife]

it might be fake (April 1) but the chalong circle was like this the other night. So instead of the jam being at the round about, it was further up the road at the U turn spot.... And of course the drivers on the other side of the U-turn driving crazy fast. I think this would increase the amount of deadly accidents. It might decrease the fender benders, but over all I see this causing more fatal accidents.

[LivinginKata]

Mmmm ... I don't see any article like that in today's Phuket Gazette.

Obviously an April fools joke. But it's a good idea. Works at Chalong Circle.

[Peterocket]

If true I think it would be an awful idea.

I would much prefer to wait in one traffic jam for 5 mins than drive through up to 3 u turns all with equally long traffic jams just so I could drive straight on.

[ScubaBuddha]

If true .....

it might be fake ...

Seriously guys?

Kind of reminds me of the time the Bangkok mayor decided to turning all street signals in Bangkok to green for the day to "ease congestion." lol

[MyphuketLife]

If true .....

it might be fake ...

Seriously guys?

Kind of reminds me of the time the Bangkok mayor decided to turning all street signals in Bangkok to green for the day to "ease congestion." lol

Yeah I know "seriously guys" its a shame that this could be taken seriously. But if you are in Phuket go to Chalong circle, you can see this exact thing in pratice at times. Or how about them releasing an article that says "Patong has decided to make the two main roads one way streets, the two streats that cross them will be two-way roads. These two-way roads the drivers will drive on the right side instead of the left side(like every other ROAD in thailand)" Most people would take such a silly traffic rule as must be april fools, but no in reality IT MUST BE THAILAND, the country slogan should be "where we strive to make every day feel like April 1st."