Land Transport Dept To Adopt New Method To Control Speeding Passenger Vans

[Lite Beer]

Land Transport Dept to adopt new method to control speeding passenger vans

BANGKOK, Feb 26 – The Department of Land Transport will soon kickoff a new project to control speed limits of passenger vans, using Radio Frequency Identification (RFI) technology.

The system to be installed in public vans will help track their locations and speed. It will be tested on March 15 before being officially launched in April.

Starting on April 1, violators will be fined 5,000 baht and 10,000 baht, and face licence revocation for repeated wrongdoings, said Land Transport Department chief Somchai Siriwattanachoke.

Deputy Transport Minister Chadchart Sittiphan will preside over opening of a training course on safety for public van operators.

To ensure their safety rights are protected by the RFID technology, passengers are advised to use the service of registered public vans with yellow licence plates and bearing symbols of the Transport Co. and Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) on the side of vans.

Illegal passenger vans normally bear white licence plates with blue or black letters. (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2012-02-26

[Reasonableman]

If they are so easy to identify for the passengers, why are they invisible to regulators and police? Let me guess....

[Unkomoncents]

"...Illegal.." My apologies, as I was deeply confused as to the meaning of this word in Thailand. I have never seen anyone use this word except when they use their hands to fold some small Baht bills so that so one can see they accepted them from the local ??? Hello. Me name Poon-Poon...

[moe666]

Why not just have the police pull them over.

[Pib]

Illegal passenger vans normally bear white licence plates with blue or black letters. (MCOT online news)

Regarding the "illegal" statement above, black letter plates means just a standard, personal van which is for personal use not business...pretty much like black letter plates on most personal passenger cars. But I thought blue letter plate vans means you are using your van in the business of carrying passengers. The great majority of vans I've seen have the the blue letters. So does this mean the great majority of passenger vans will "not" use the RFI technology or be subject to the fines? Tens of thousands of these types of vans around Thailand. The article seems to indicate the fines will only apply to those yellow tag vans in Bangkok which are far outnumbered by the blue letter vans.

[RKASA]

So it seems that only yellow plates are licenced to take paying passangers and they will be getting RFID tracking tags. They can't install them on illegal van's because they won't come in a get them. Use the vans that will have tracking for your own protection it will say so on the van. Un licenced operators will be fined and easy to find because they won't show up when scanned as they drive by the scanner - bingo. About time a serious method went into place.

[Pib]

So it seems that only yellow plates are licenced to take paying passangers and they will be getting RFID tracking tags. They can't install them on illegal van's because they won't come in a get them. Use the vans that will have tracking for your own protection it will say so on the van. Un licenced operators will be fined and easy to find because they won't show up when scanned as they drive by the scanner - bingo. About time a serious method went into place.

This really ain't no serious plan which addresses all the passenger carrying vans.. Only the vehicles with RFI decals attached will show up on a RFI scanner....these will be the yellow plate vans which I think are actually a joint government and private companies venture...pretty much limited to the Bangkok area but still far outnumbered by blue letter plate vans. So the govt has some pull here to kinda force application of the RFI technology on yellow plate vans. Other van vehicles, like blue letter plate vans, won't be detected since they probably won't get in RFI decals applied....or status quo....continue to drive at whatever speed you want.

Over the coming days/weeks make note of how many vans have blue letter plates, black letter plates, or yellow plates.. I think the result will be few black letter plates, a noticeable amount of yellow plate tags, but the great majority will be blue letter tags.

Edited February 26, 2012 by Pib

[Boater]

why dont they just limit the speed of the vans like every other country?

[sunny6301]

how about making it guaranteed jail time for leaving the scene of an accident, as every time the driver of a bus does this without hesitation...

[maidu]

Why not just have the police pull them over.

why dont they just limit the speed of the vans like every other country?

It will never work in northernmost Thailand. Here are some reasons:

>>>> Never, in the history of northernmost Thailand, has anyone been pulled over and ticketed for speeding or for running a red light, or cutting too close on a blind corner or for driving on the wrong side of the street. It's not uncommon to have speeders go through a busy intersection 2 to 5 seconds after their light turns red.

>>>>> There are too many categories of 'untouchables.' I could list about 14 categories (of people who can NEVER get ticketed, no matter what), yet I'm sure you'all could add more categories.

Related topic: Today, about half the motocyclists I saw were talking on mobile phones while trying to drive. One was a soldier who dangerously swerved in front of me to make a turn. When will we see something done about that? ...with teeth. Oviously, if the babbling soldier had caused an accident with me (a farang), you can guess who'd be blamed.

Edited February 26, 2012 by maidu

[jvs]

April 1st?

[chinook]

Should set higher standards and prices for commercial driving licenses with threat of revocation if abused..........works everywhere else in the world. ................Silly me......what was I thinking..they'd only just got the hang of bicycles and then 4x4's turned up ............job f****ed really when you think about it, I'm amazed they haven't wiped themselves out already.

Edited February 26, 2012 by chinook

[chrisinth]

how about making it guaranteed jail time for leaving the scene of an accident, as every time the driver of a bus does this without hesitation...

Prevention is better than cure; better to address the problem before the accident stage.

[chrisinth]

April 1st?

Noticed that as well, very appropriate.

[janverbeem]

Illegal passenger vans normally bear white licence plates with blue or black letters. (MCOT online news)

Regarding the "illegal" statement above, black letter plates means just a standard, personal van which is for personal use not business...pretty much like black letter plates on most personal passenger cars. But I thought blue letter plate vans means you are using your van in the business of carrying passengers. The great majority of vans I've seen have the the blue letters. So does this mean the great majority of passenger vans will "not" use the RFI technology or be subject to the fines? Tens of thousands of these types of vans around Thailand. The article seems to indicate the fines will only apply to those yellow tag vans in Bangkok which are far outnumbered by the blue letter vans.

Vehicles registered for tranportation of persons for commercial purposes carry a yellow license plate.

[janverbeem]

Starting on April 1, violators will be fined 5,000 baht and 10,000 baht, and face licence revocation for repeated wrongdoings, said Land Transport Department chief Somchai Siriwattanachoke

I really hope they will not enforce this law,because if they do within a few weeks everyone will have to look for their own transportation as all minibus drivers will be without a driver license.

Oops my error,I'm sure many of them have never owned a driver license

Edited February 26, 2012 by janverbeem

[rakman]

Is there an RFID network along the highways (main roads and secondary roads)? RFID is short range, so does a series of detector stations and network to collect and send the data exist? Where does the data go?

Are all packages or trucks already using RFID?

Interesting.

[elshaheen]

Why not just have the police pull them over.

Van's go to fast for the Police to pull over.

[OzMick]

The system fall down when you realise that if a van driver makes a stop to pick up or drop off, he can then drive like a maniac up to the next checkpoint and still be outside the allowed minimum time.

[toenail]

???? Why just vans???? Passenger buses, SUV's, trucks are speeding also. Why not do what other civilized countries do? Have traffic police out to give out tickets to those speeding and a point system where one can lose their driver's licence for 6 months to a year. It seems to work in other countries. Again another simple solution that won't work in Thailan due to corruption.

[roxnadz]

I'm surprised the vans can even drive as fast as they do, with the roads as $#!&%* as they are.

[hkt83100]

But I thought blue letter plate vans means you are using your van in the business of carrying passengers. The great majority of vans I've seen have the the blue letters.

I drive a Ssangyong with blue letter plates, it means the car got more than 7 seats, but is for private use. The Stavic got 11 seats...

[mijan24]

Why not just have the police pull them over.

why dont they just limit the speed of the vans like every other country?

It will never work in northernmost Thailand. Here are some reasons:

>>>> Never, in the history of northernmost Thailand, has anyone been pulled over and ticketed for speeding or for running a red light, or cutting too close on a blind corner or for driving on the wrong side of the street. It's not uncommon to have speeders go through a busy intersection 2 to 5 seconds after their light turns red.

>>>>> There are too many categories of 'untouchables.' I could list about 14 categories (of people who can NEVER get ticketed, no matter what), yet I'm sure you'all could add more categories.

Related topic: Today, about half the motocyclists I saw were talking on mobile phones while trying to drive. One was a soldier who dangerously swerved in front of me to make a turn. When will we see something done about that? ...with teeth. Oviously, if the babbling soldier had caused an accident with me (a farang), you can guess who'd be blamed.

Add to this the act of diverting to the service road so as not to be stopped by traffic lights as they speed towards Nong Khai.

[Unkomoncents]

I'm surprised the vans can even drive as fast as they do, with the roads as $#!&%* as they are.

No need to stir anything here but Thailand's pretty dam_n good considering China or India. Africa would make a Thai police officer blush...

[JurgenG]

I know in Europe for trucks they use some kind of speed recording devices installed in the truck. When the police stops the truck, they just need to check the recording to know if the truck was over speeding or not.

In Thailand it's difficult to stop the vans because they all communicate to each other through the radio and they are always informed of the location of the police check and they change their itinerary accordingly.

[Pib]

But I thought blue letter plate vans means you are using your van in the business of carrying passengers. The great majority of vans I've seen have the the blue letters.

I drive a Ssangyong with blue letter plates, it means the car got more than 7 seats, but is for private use. The Stavic got 11 seats...

While you may indeed only use yours for private use, everyone just needs to look at the high, high number of vans driving on the road with blue lettered plates...vans full of passengers...vans stopping to pick up and drop off people everywhere especially close to bus/tax stops...vans carrying school kids....vans carrying expats on visa runs...vans going down the road at 120Km full of people....the list goes on and one for those blue lettered plate vans whether they are being used for private or public use and whether they are being used illegally or not.

[Payboy]

How about limiting the speed of drivers fleeing the scene.

[Pib]

Vehicles registered for tranportation of persons for commercial purposes carry a yellow license plate.

I would just say see my response to above post #26

[atyclb]

VAN Safety seatbelt modifications;

This was apparently a licensed van as it had permission to park in an official bus station.

Seat belts were bound with industrial grade plastic ties and/or head post rods through latches.

Shared this with some Japanese friends who were amazed also.

Seems great majority of passengers dont notice or dont care.

Passengers that want to use seat belts only need to carry cutting pliers.

[swillowbee]

... oh, pul-leaze!

... I will wager a hundred Thai baht that no illegal Thai van will he apprehended by the Royal Thai Police ... and there are thousands of illegal Thai van drivers with a humdred Thai baht in their hands who will make that same bet every single time they are stopped.

... Thais plan ... and the gods laugh!