They Bought Cars But Don'T Know How To Drive.

[IanForbes]

Like most Thai cities, Chiang Mai was not designed for vehicles larger than motorscooters. I'm always amazed at the lack of skill and common sense used by owners with cars or trucks. Large vehicles in congested areas on narrow streets and sois cause all sorts of havok when the owners don't use a little bit of logic. The Nimmenhamein area is one of the worst. If one person parks in someplace they shouldn't then the whole traffic flow comes to a halt. A vehicle will try to cross two lanes of fraffic when there's no possible way they can do so, And, in so doing they block everyone. Instead of letting some offending vehicle complete its turn, the others will crowd in so close that everyone comes to a halt. I've had trouble just getting through on foot, let alone on motorscooter. Sure glad I've got all the time in the world and don't mind walking when it's too busy to ride. I've seen so many drivers that have no idea of the width of their cars, and they have no idea how to back up, that I wonder how they got their drivers permit in the first place.

Rant over.

By contrast, I'm always amazed at how well the drivers of tourist busses can get their huge vehicles into such narrow spaces. I've been so close beside another buss that I could light a person's cigarette in the bus beside mine.

[ThaiWx]

" I've seen so many drivers that have no idea of the width of their cars, and they have no idea how to back up, that I wonder how they got their drivers permit in the first place. "

Who said they got one?

[pgthompson]

Sorry, how long have you lived in Chiang Mai? You've only just noticed the appalling driving here, or you're just having a moan for the begining of 2011 hoping the Thai's will take notice?

By the way, there is NO logic in the way Thai's drive, they are oblivious to any other road users and think they are the only ones on the road.

Taking your driving test over here will show you why you don't need any skill to drive in Thailand, the test is a complete farce.

[CobraSnakeNecktie]

my favorite move is the muscle past you move at all costs and then the immediate turn into drive or parking lot that is already queued up... Really? couldn't plan ahead 30 seconds..

30 seconds seems to be a lifetime too long for many Thai drivers to consider.

[MrBrad]

Or when they pass you and immediately veer back into the left lane thinking that you're still (way) back there, when in fact you're right beside them, almost getting run off the road and into the ditch. Out of sight, out of mind.

[garyh]

I agree with the OP but also seen some farang's on scooters doing some very stupid things.

[IanForbes]

Actually, I enjoy it all, but only because I really don't have to make any appointments on time. I just stand back in awe of it all.

On my very first trip to Thailand in 1996 I arrived at Don Muang airport and took the city bus into the Sukhumveit area of Bangkok where I was to meet a friend at a hotel near Nana Plaza. The bus was trying to get into the city at rush hour (5:30 PM)

At that time they were putting in the Air tram and the whole roadway was torn up which took away one lane of traffic. There was SUPPOSED to be 4 lanes going in one direction and 1 lane going in the opposite direction. But, what actually happened was oncoming traffic took up all 5 lanes. Motorbikes road on the walkways. Our bus had to drive down narrow sois to get into the city. The driver had to pull in his mirrors to get through. At one point he had to stop the bus and get off to move a garbage can into a business entrance. We were so close to the buildings I could look right through the apartment windows from about 10 cm away. I felt like a peeping tom. It took us about 3 hours to get into the city, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

[slapout]

I watched a fellow the other day turn down a single lane road, the wrong way, he had to back up due to oncoming vehicles, and he managed to scrape the entire right side of his new SUV along a concrete wall. He actually got out and asked the first driver in a line of 4 or 5 to back up so he would not have to back up 10 meters, so as we could get out onto the main road.

I had a good chuckle after telling him no, I could not back up as there was traffic behind me. The chuckle was because he scraped the wall again while reversing out.

[jayjay0]

Actually with the infrastructure being as inadequate as it is I am surprised there is not more accidents,

I lived in the lower mainlands in the 70s and early 80s.. That is Vancouver BC and the surrounding communities. They had a lot of Asian people there and they pretty much all drove like the Chiang Mai Thais.

Our problem is we grew up with a different out look on it. Consequently it is hard to accept there style. Cheer up it could get worse. Last time we were in Phnom Phin My Thai wife said she would not even ride her motor bike there.

I get my jollies out of watching the farongs wondering why they don't drive like back home. And to try to tell them is a lost cause.. Heck where I come from In Canada we have what is called Alberta drivers. They are hopeless also.Just sit back and watch the show.

[Rice_King]

Half of local drivers drive their vehicles so timidly to the point of annoyance. They drive so slow and cautious and despite having miles of clear space to make their maneuver, will wait forever to turn at an intersection or crossing. The other half drive like they're totally nuts -- too fast and barely in control of their vehicles.

I avoid Nimmenhamein as much as possible. Lately, it has become a parking lot for most of the day and half of the night.

[garyh]

I watched a fellow the other day turn down a single lane road, the wrong way, he had to back up due to oncoming vehicles, and he managed to scrape the entire right side of his new SUV along a concrete wall. He actually got out and asked the first driver in a line of 4 or 5 to back up so he would not have to back up 10 meters, so as we could get out onto the main road.

I had a good chuckle after telling him no, I could not back up as there was traffic behind me. The chuckle was because he scraped the wall again while reversing out.

Is something like driving by Braille?

[Fishenough]

It's the followers that scare me.

Drivers, 2 or 4 wheeled, that closely follow the bolder vehicle in front of them. Saves them any need to look for oncoming traffic, proceeding in absolute trust that someone else has decided it's good to go. There easy to spot, because unlike the lead vehicle which actually had to look and decide when to go, the follower has none of that responsibility and only has eyes on the vehicle directly in front. As a result it's a complete surprise when things go crunch.

And lane splitting at highway speeds: not cars yes, but is something that doesn't just result in a scraped hand if it fails.

Your right Ian, little rants feel good. :jap:

[hayden5650]

What I don't get is why Thais insist on reversing into every parking space! They are hopeless at reversing.

Why not drive straight in and reverse out like we do? It's much easier.

[Myaimistrue]

Yeah, I just got back to Bangkok from Chiang Mai and I definitely noticed the difference there. It is extremely rare when I can't move on my motorcycle, but in CM on a rented bike, it happened again and again where there was just no space to go between or around cars. It was very frustrating and I never thought that I would look forward to getting back to Bangkok because of a better driving environment!

[Gladiator]

You might want to check out Ian's profile.

Sorry, how long have you lived in Chiang Mai? You've only just noticed the appalling driving here, or you're just having a moan for the begining of 2011 hoping the Thai's will take notice?

By the way, there is NO logic in the way Thai's drive, they are oblivious to any other road users and think they are the only ones on the road.

Taking your driving test over here will show you why you don't need any skill to drive in Thailand, the test is a complete farce.

[bangkokcitylimits]

That and the complete lack of city development

Never seen any improvement the past 12 years, things are only getting worse and worse and worse and worse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOZfipHcs4E&feature=related

Edited January 2, 2011 by bangkokcitylimits

[naboo]

Today, and the last few days, if you look on the plates of every car that's causing a problem, its from Bangkok. I think that's what Ian's talking about, people from Bangkok who can't drive. Bloody nightmare they are.

Next pubilc holiday I'm out of here. The joy I got out of crying out to my girlfriend in the middle of Walking street "Kon Grungthep mai supparp" doesn't quite compensate for the trouble they've caused.

Bloody Bangkokians.

[tigerfish]

Today, and the last few days, if you look on the plates of every car that's causing a problem, its from Bangkok. I think that's what Ian's talking about, people from Bangkok who can't drive. Bloody nightmare they are.

Next pubilc holiday I'm out of here. The joy I got out of crying out to my girlfriend in the middle of Walking street "Kon Grungthep mai supparp" doesn't quite compensate for the trouble they've caused.

Bloody Bangkokians.

you may actually find that although the cars are registered in Bangkok they might belong to people that are visiting friends and family over the new year holiday. who are originally from parts of the north of Thailand and other areas like Isaan who reside or live in Bangkok now for work reasons. you only have to take a look at the t.v. and newspapers out here at times of the year like now and over the Songkran holiday period to see how many people make the pilgrimage back home and also the amount of accidents that occur on the roads over these periods through careless driving.

on the contrary Bangkok has been a haven of tranquillity these past few days over the holiday period with easy access to roads. the time its taken to get to ones destination has at least been halved and there has been no need to double park anywhere or leave the hand brake off in case someone wants to move or get out because there is ample room for everyone to go about their business without any hassles. and everyone seems to know where they are going for a change.

i only wish it would last !

but no doubt that sometime from midday onwards tomorrow the roads will return to normal with over packed pick - ups with people clutching bags of rice, cardboard boxes tied up with pieces of string and jars of land crabs and smelly fermented fish.

Edited January 2, 2011 by tigerfish

[Beetlejuice]

Well, sorry to go against the majority of opinion here, but I think the standard of driving in Thailand has greatly improved over the last 20 years.

Although there maybe not much driving according to the Thai Highway Code, if they have one, I find most drivers extremely courteous. Of course there are always going to be the idiots, but that’s the same the world over.

I have experienced much worse driving by road users in the United States, in Britain and especially bad in some countries of Europe. Where they often give the 2 fingered saluted and the shouting obscenities are regular practice.

I think the main traffic problems in Thailand is caused by the lack of controlled road and signal system, it`s often a free for all, not always the fault of the drivers themselves.

[ChiefMonkey]

I lived in Chiangmai for five and a half years before moving up to Maesai where, I have lived for a similar amount of time. Driving in CM is indeed a daunting task. However, at weekends and on public holidays, when visitors from CM combine with the Burmese itinerant workers in Maesai, the roads here are lethal. No one gives way, cyclists pull out of side roads without looking and people park where they want. In contrast, the driving in Burma is a breeze! Mainly due to the lack of cars.

[pgthompson]

You might want to check out Ian's profile.

Sorry, how long have you lived in Chiang Mai? You've only just noticed the appalling driving here, or you're just having a moan for the begining of 2011 hoping the Thai's will take notice?

By the way, there is NO logic in the way Thai's drive, they are oblivious to any other road users and think they are the only ones on the road.

Taking your driving test over here will show you why you don't need any skill to drive in Thailand, the test is a complete farce.

OK, I've read it. Your point is?

[canuckamuck]

Heck where I come from In Canada we have what is called Alberta drivers. They are hopeless also.Just sit back and watch the show.

That's funny because in Alberta we have to put up with Saskatchewan drivers.

[LivinLOS]

Well I just got here from Phuket and the level of aggression here is far lower, I will take some poor driving and inner city congestion over aggressive tuktuks with a gun in the glove box thanks.

Plus while I agree that downtown has its share of traffic issues (and so does everywhere these days, population buying vehicles faster than roads are built) but the layout of town is so well done with the multiple ring roads. From where I live I can hop on a ring road, skirt town and be right into the nimanheamin side via the inner ring in minutes, yet out to hang dong in not far off the same.

[LJW]

I think Thai vehicle drivers drive fine.

[LivinLOS]

Will also add outside of the city, drivers are far more aware, and courteous to, big bike riders.. On Phuket you can be coming down to road and they will simply pull out demanding right of way, even right into the path of a moving sportbike.

Here, while certainly not perfect, I find vehicles even notice me coming up behind them, and pull from the center line, sometimes even indicating to show they have seen me. This is a major change from what I am used to.

[garyh]

Sorry, how long have you lived in Chiang Mai? You've only just noticed the appalling driving here, or you're just having a moan for the begining of 2011 hoping the Thai's will take notice?

By the way, there is NO logic in the way Thai's drive, they are oblivious to any other road users and think they are the only ones on the road.

Most Thai's dont drive any worse than most Farang's. Also you may want to look at your punctuation's.

Well, sorry to go against the majority of opinion here, but I think the standard of driving in Thailand has greatly improved over the last 20 years.

Absolutely.

Please feel free to correct my punctuation?

You're possibly right that the Farang's here drive just as bad, they've no choice. My point is that if the standard of the Driving Test was improved then so would the driving skills. I certainly don't see many driving school's or "L" Plated cars! It seems to me that people turn up in their own vehicles to the Driving Centre and then pass the test, if they fail, drive back home and return another day.

Wouldn't matter what the driving test was, Mai Pen Rai would still prevail, what is needed is proper enforcement of the laws. But that will not happen any time soon.

[backsoon]

Actually, I must admit, that Thais are not so bad at the wheel. There are exceptions, though. In my opinion they are:

(in order of incompetence)

Scooter riders

Thai ladies

Thai dogs

These three groups of public road users are a menace to themselves and to all drivers. I wish Thai cops read this

[orang37]

Sawasdee Khrup Khun IanForbes,

ioho, a relevant question is: was Chiang Mai ever "designed" in any formal sense.

If we go back more than 700 years, we can say "yes:" at that time the first city of Chiang Mai (now the ruins known as Wiang Khum Kham) were flooded by a shift of the River Ping having been (foolishly ? based on very different geographic facts "on the ground" then ?) located on low-lying land. If you buy the "Three Kings" story/legend/myth of the current city's founding, the central location was found during a search of the Doi Suthep area where a whole glut of magical, auspicious, signs (animals) were seen: And, in that same "founding story" (tamnarn), the Kings of Sukhothai, and Payao, collaborated with Mengrai, convincing him to scale down the size of the moated fortress city from about Mengrai's originally planned 3000 fathoms per side to its current approximately 1000 x 900 meters rectangular form.

So, we can say, that in ancient times, a fortress-city was designed, and its strategic layout, outside the fortress inner-city included a wide thoroughfare from what is now Thapae Gate down to the river which was the life-blood of commerce in those times. Until the railroad came in here in the late 1920's, a journey from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, depending on rainy season, could be virtually impossible to taking weeks. And the placement of other important "sacred" aspects of the city, like the "palladial" Wats, and the city pillar (Inthrakin, a Siva Lingam now relocated to Wat Chedi Luang and covered over with a standing Buddha) was based on planning ... of a "sacred architectural" sort.

Since then ? Well, the fortress-city persisted for strategic reasons, and enslaved peoples captired through war and deliberate raiding of Shan, Tai Yai, Tai Lue, for population, and volunatary migrants were located outside the city walls which were closed at night to all who did not have explicit permission to live there for centuries. The Mon silversmiths of Wua Lai road, migrating here to seek a "better deal" from the predatory Burmese, were given what is now the Wua Lai road area which was then, according to one source, "malarial, bottom land."

Then, around the time of the end of two-hundred years in which Chiang Mai was a Burmese colony, heavily exploited, it was finally abandoned around the time of American independence: for twenty years the city was deserted, de-populated, temples fallen down, wild tigers roaming what had once been streets over-grown with jungle.

Restoration came after the fall of Ayudhya, the rise of King Taksin, the alliance with King Kawila of Lampang. And the repopulation was done, as usual, by rounding up Shans, Thai Yai, Thai Lua, and forced re-settlement, and then, also, some voluntary migration the scope of which really cannot be known with any accuracy.

But, in modern times ? Perhaps you have seen the pictures of the old Thapae Road, broad, tree-lined, full of people on bicycles ?

With automobiles and motorcycles, and no zoning, and vast infusions of capital, and the promotion of tourism, and the re-invention of "showpiece Lanna culture" for tourist purposes in the sixties and seventies: well, we think that since then, it's all been a mess, a series of accretions, a city in which money could buy the right to build anything anywhere (look at the Rydges Hotel that ruined the aesthetic of the Thapae Gate area, or the ugly box of Le Meridien in the Night Bazaar, for examples). Even the Royal Lanna hotel, where we once lived, was supposedly, through trickery, first licensed as a condo building ... allowing them to build higher than permitted in the area for hotels ... and then ... surprise ... switched over to being a hotel (money talks).

However, lest we sound we're really ragging on Chiang Mai in some negative special sense: how many other cities in the world evolved, accreted, the same ugly way ? We'd say many or most.

With hindsight: how sad the inner city of Chiang Mai, and old river marketing interface, Kad Luang, or Wararot, was not declared a world heritage site long ago, and some controls placed on development.

What "stupifies" us, as we sometimes (rarely) bicycle around the Nimmanheiman area now, is just the sheer vast numbers of restaurants, bars, coffee houses, both on the main street, and far down the side sois. And many of the restaurants evince quite lovely design to our eyes individually, but taken together in one gigantic jumble, are too much for our eyes.

Then we have the interesting much later phenomenon of "Lanna Deco" hotels which look, sometimes (Dhara Devi), more like a Wat (of some fantasy Shan style) than the nearby actual Thai Wat.

But, is there any less chaos in Chicago's growth as a city ? And with Los Angeles, well, yes, we might say there is less flagrant public recklessness while driving, but is there not traffic chaos, and gridlock ?

best, ~o:37;

Edited January 3, 2011 by orang37

[H2oDunc]

Far worse than bad Thai drivers, who know no better, are the Farang drivers who do yet drive like the Thais. They should all be pistol whipped by the BIB till they remember to drive like they have to back in Farang land

[realthaideal]

Actually, Ian is as much a proverbial stirrer of the pot as he is a fisherman. He's just cooked something up for New Year to get people talking, and of course, it worked. What he said is fairly balanced. We all have to admit, rose-colored glass off, that driving standards, safety standards, enforcement standards, are sub-par for what they could be. Of course that's part of the crazy ingredients that make this a charming and wonderful land. And then a most dangerous/ sometimes annoying one on the other hand. Whaddya gonna do ? We all live here.

Hat's off to Ian for stirring up all the Farang's again.

And side-note: tip of the hat for Winnie calling out the spate of misuse of apostrophe's in nearly every thread here. I wonder when it was that people forgot 's' itself makes a plural ?! Internet and Word spellcheck to blame for all of our mistake's maybe (or age of the average user)?!