Road Etiquette

[corkscrew]

Americans, even those from New Orleans, are pretty cop-fearing when it comes to obeying the rules of the road. Witness the TV pictures from the traffic helicopters when Katrina was coming to town: all the northbound lanes were clotted with cars that were going nowhere while the southbound lanes were totally empty. Since the cops had not sanctioned contra-flow it didn't happen ... even though common sense screamed otherwise.

Bangkokians go with common sense every time ... here road rules are suggestions that wash well only when they are convenient. Here is an example.

Friday afternoons are the worst time to drive in Bangkok ... especially when it has just rained. Foolish me. I drove to Chinatown and by the time I was halfway home rain, rush hour and school let-outs made our two southbound lanes a parking lot. The two northbound lanes were only moderately heavy with cars. At a certain point the southerners spontaneously created their own contra-flow. Within a minute we now had three lanes of traffic while the guys heading north had just one. The beauty of it was not that it occurred at some critical tipping point ... (of, say, bumper to bumper vehicle mass divided by its diminishing speed) ... but that it really did the job: traffic now flowed both ways.

[OxfordWill]

Good observation corkscrew..but do they follow the herd or are all drivers of equal initiative? I once suggested to my taxi driver that he use a driveway to uturn and he replied that he never saw anyone using that driveway for uturn so he wasn't going to.

[siamesekitty]

Safety in numbers! mooo...

[wilko]

Americans, even those from New Orleans, are pretty cop-fearing when it comes to obeying the rules of the road. Witness the TV pictures from the traffic helicopters when Katrina was coming to town: all the northbound lanes were clotted with cars that were going nowhere while the southbound lanes were totally empty. Since the cops had not sanctioned contra-flow it didn't happen ... even though common sense screamed otherwise.

Q: - How do you get 400 Americans out of a swimming pool?

A: - You stand at the edge of the pool and say - "OK! Everybody get out of the pool"

[OxfordWill]

Safety in numbers!  mooo...

Bah...you know that's not what I meant! Unless you're talking about Victory Monument at rush hour!

[corkscrew]

Good observation corkscrew..but do they follow the herd or are all drivers of equal initiative? I once suggested to my taxi driver that he use a driveway to uturn and he replied that he never saw anyone using that driveway for uturn so he wasn't going to.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think that a few creative souls figured out that it was silly to wait for God-only-knows-how-long in a couple of lanes while very few people were coming in the opposite direction...so they used common sense and crossed the dividing line...then the herd followed. As a farang I would not have been the first to jump lanes. Funny, it was not the taxis that started it....it was the BIG cars: maybe HiSo drivers. Of course the motorcycles did whatever they wanted and when they wanted.

Driving in BKK is fun.

[siamesekitty]

Driving in BKK is fun.

That's probably why Dan Neramit (Magic Land) near Jatujak closed. Who needs an amusement park with bumper cars and rollercoasters when you have the streets of Bangkok!

[corkscrew]

Driving in BKK is fun.

That's probably why Dan Neramit (Magic Land) near Jatujak closed. Who needs an amusement park with bumper cars and rollercoasters when you have the streets of Bangkok!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Good point!

[chownah]

Have you ever tried to get off of the north bound lanes on a divided highway and then get on the south bound lanes going north bound and then get off again?...with the southbound traffic (because it is light) traveling at 75 to 80 mph (120kph)? It can be a difficult maneuver and definitely dangerous!!!! Not at all like just slipping over one lane on a city street!!

[Thaipwriter]

I once suggested to my taxi driver that he use a driveway to uturn and he replied that he never saw anyone using that driveway for uturn so he wasn't going to.

[Plus+]

The situation in the OP is pretty usual - I know of several places where people do things like that. I noticed that they are usually time related - people create extra lanes only during rush hour, and people, well, most of them, follow unspoken rules when breaking the written ones.

Just yesterday morning I was driving my gf's car through a place I haven't been for months. As usually I "created" a second left turning lane but my gf told me that these days people drive in one lane only and I was sort of "rude" to squeeze in. It's still ok to turn left by driving around the little road island separating left from straight though. Go figure.

[Artisan]

Thai driver's have only one precept which they follow with obstinate determination and that is......................"Me First".......................and they follow this just so that they can find, ultimately, somewhere to do a U-Turn.

[corkscrew]

Have you ever tried to get off of the north bound lanes on a divided highway and then get on the south bound lanes going north bound and then get off again?...with the southbound traffic (because it is light) traveling at 75 to 80 mph (120kph)?  It can be a difficult maneuver and definitely dangerous!!!!  Not at all like just slipping over one lane on a city street!!

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, I realize that. I was being a bit facetious in that opening paragraph. I am sure that I, too, would have remained standing still in the northbound lanes even with Katrina blowing at my back. But, I think of it as my literary license to be a little hyperbolic here and there.

Anyway, you must admit that very few Americans would take over an adjoining contra-lane if the traffic was just going too slow where they wanted to go.