I was turning right at traffic lights. Someone from my left does a U turn in front of me. Lucky I have good brakes. Stopped within centimetres from hitting him. The driver just kept going.

I may be wrong and correct me if I am but I believe that the Thai 'Highway Code' (or what passes for such) does say that all traffic must yield to all merging traffic; hence the common tendency to "pull out of a side turning without checking for oncoming traffic." They have right of way.

If that is correct NanLaew then that is a very important, in fact, critical observation. Can someone confirm?

I know that Thais get incensed at farangs motorcyclists taking up position in the middle of the road and not using the side lane. If you asked the average farang they would reckon that the side lane was a " Hard Shoulder" as we call it in the UK, and that it would be illegal to use that.

Is it the case that it's the farangs who are ignorant of the Highway code??

I alos get fed up with Thais who occupy the nearside lane of the new road to BoSang from don Chan ( CM), a wonderful bike lane, ignored

Edit - although it does still annoy me when they pull out of a side turning without checking for oncoming traffic...

I may be wrong and correct me if I am but I believe that the Thai 'Highway Code' (or what passes for such) does say that all traffic must yield to all merging traffic; hence the common tendency to "pull out of a side turning without checking for oncoming traffic." They have right of way.

Reminds me of my first arse pucker driving in Dallas in 1984 where I quickly learned that traffic on the feeder (me in my rental T-bird) must yield to traffic exiting the freeway (the Chevy Suburban that almost came through the drivers door).

So what are those "give way" markings painted in the side roads for?

http://www.123rf.com...cycle-lane.html

this is the sort of thing that you see sometimes in the lane in question. It does indicate that this is indeed a motorbike lane

Concur. The lane is not even a full vehicle width so how it could be construed as a hard shoulder is beyond belief...

Another little nugget. How many westerners are aware of this regulation:

Vehicles with red registration plates are not permitted to drive at night.

And how many Thais with red no.s dont drive at night, also red number = are you writing down daily where you are going to and from??

I Love the way when you are blatting down the outside lane at 120kmh that almost all Thai drivers u turning onto your side of the road form the opposite cariiageway pull out like a freakin tortoise forcing you to virtually stop when for the sake of them going more quickly you would be nowhere near hitting them.

That said the whole U Turn road set up is the most dangerous thing Ive ever seen.