Windscreen Cleaners Too Street-smart

[george]

Windscreen cleaners too street-smart

BANGKOK: -- Women motorists travelling alone are facing new forms of intimidation by providers of unwanted windscreen-cleaning services on Bangkok streets, especially at the Silom-Rama IV intersection, where the unsolicited trade is being run by several burly men.

Local police, however, say they can do little to tackle the problem, which has plagued unwary motorists for more than 10 years. All they can do is play a cat-and-mouse game with the windscreen cleaners, who if caught are subject to a meagre fine or brief detention only, as their conduct is considered a non-felony.

The men now forcing this unwanted service on motorists are targeting women drivers while avoiding those driven by men. After wiping a screen, they demand a fee, and usually get it from the intimidated drivers. Only rarely do they stop when a driver becomes more aggressively insistent that they will not pay.

Police blame their inability to control the problem at Silom-Rama IV on overlapping jurisdictions, as the intersection connects three police precincts – Pathum Wan, Lumpini and Thung Maha Mek – making sustainable suppression operations difficult.

Senior Sgt-Major Arthit Watthanaparida, of Thung Maha Mek station, said the cleaners usually rotate around the areas covered by the three police precincts when officers from one station chase them following complaints from motorists.

He said the only penalty that could be imposed on these men was a maximum fine of Bt1,000 – a traffic violation defined as “being on a traffic surface without good reason”. Those who could not afford the fine were briefly confined, and then released.

To permanently rid the streets of them, the officer said drastic and sustainable action was needed with permission from superior officers.

Sgt-Major Bunsong Phongsaen, of Pathum Wan station, admitted police were outsmarted by the window cleaners, who he said used secret body language among themselves to alert others to police presence or to signal escape from arrest.

The local police’s authority was limited and all they could do was to fine the cleaners for walking on the road, said Patumwan Police Station Superintendent Colonel Supisarn Pakdeenarunart.

He urged other related agencies such as the Social Development and Human Security Ministry, Labour Ministry and Culture Ministry to help tackle the problem.

“The government doesn’t lower itself to take care of these petty issues. They think they are trivial. But, in fact, they are important,” he said.

A traffic police officer stationed at the Silom-Rama IV intersection, who requested anonymity, said the cleaners have frequented the intersection for a long time, especially the outbound lanes next to Chulalongkorn Hospital.

The officer said they could easily escape police by running into the hospital or a department store on the other side of the street.

“They are smart. They know where and how to escape the police,” the officer said.

--The Nation 2005-08-02