Bangkok Mass Transit Authority Ordered To Immediately Reduce Fumes

[PaultheSeeker]

There is a Pollution Department? What do they do? (You don't have to answer.)

I ride a bicycle every day in and around Bangkok, and I sometimes end up behind these buses going up an overpass (when I am in greatest need of oxygen). I can feel the particulates hitting my face. However, small trucks are dirty diesels too, and they are more numerous.

Motorcycles actually pollute as much as cars (gasoline-powered) because they have no emissions devices. I'm not even going to get into the two-stroke ones.

The government needs to implement emissions standards and testing of all vehicles. Yeah, I know it will not happen anytime this decade, but at least they could set up roadside checks to fine the smokey ones, but I guess that would just mean more revenue for the BIB.

In short, bureaucracy and corruption will lead to nothing being done, as usual. And the Pollution Department can keep surfing the net/nap all day long.

[asiawatcher]

Does anyone know how old this red 8-Baht Buses (Modell HINO) are? The Diesel-engine dates from the reign of Rama V. maybe?!

It's not a Hino - It's a Mitsubishi. And all they have to do is service injectors to remove the black smoke issue, change the tips actually. And then teach the idiots at the wheel to not take it to the red line in 1st gear...

[Soi Sauce]

How can a government agency or business not meet legal standards?

Because to them there is no law, only wot gets them a few baht.

[Bramdaddy]

Ten years....ten years and nothing happened. Nothing changed. Just a bit of face saving in 2006. I'll hold my breath on Bangkok's roads, but I won't hold my breath anything will come of this court ruling. TIT.

[Screws]

If you look at the picture, the smoke is coming out of the tuk tuk in the front of the picture obscured by the bikes.

Tuk-tuks and motosais don't make black smoke. They make bluish smoke, from the oil, either mixed in the fuel (old bikes/tuk-tuks), or from worn rings.

Buses make black smoke, as a result of burning diesel oil. Black smoke is mostly carbon particles (particulates), and is particularly bad for lungs. Buses are, by far, the greatest polluters in Bangkok.

What color is the smoke in the picture?

Blue.

Look at the tail pipe of the hind most motosai in the picture.

Some from that mosai, but most (in front of mosai) is most likely from Tuk Tuk.

[SICHONSTEVE]

Just more hot air.

SMELLY hot air!!!

[SICHONSTEVE]

So.........there will be no more fumes or toxic emissions tomorrow then!!!!!

[ricardofel]

10 years later after 10 years of pollution....and now setting a new standard.....hahahahaha........the entire country is polluted, mostly with corrupt politicians, but definitely with carcinogenic pollution and it will never change. Civilized countries have LAWS that are enforced, but not Thailand.

[Jawnie]

Just more hot air.

Yes, but without all the nasty hydro carbons and whatnot.

[AleG]

When they say IMMEDIATELY, the Thai Translation is DON'T HOLD YOUR BREATH.

Actually, it would be better to hold your breath.

I've always had the hunch that the greatest contributor to Bangkok's perennial smog blanket are motorbikes, tuk-tuks and the like. Two stroke engines in particular are very polluting.

While a bus belching a black cloud of choking fumes is bad, I think small inefficient vehicles win by numerical superiority and use frequency.

In any case, solving the chronic traffic jam in the city would go a good way in reducing pollution.

[belg]

and i tought they all drove on gas or supposed to

[osiboy]

IMHO The best thing thailand could do is introduce an MOT as in the UK /EU, but maybe every 3 or 5 yrs to start with, ....knowing this is thailand im sure it would be very difficult to impliment due to all the brown envelopes being passed around the MOT stations , but where there is a will there is a way , most thais i speak to are so ignorant to global warming/greene issues , but if they were made more aware of these concernes through the school system it hopefully would finally filter down to the thai drivers of tomorrow, and why only BKK ?.........................did i just write this ????..............nah , wont happen , TIT !!...........FORGET IT .

Edited October 31, 2012 by osiboy

[Ricardo]

They might reconvert the buses back to water-buffalo-pulled, but then everyone would complain about the smell of buffalo-poo, and also that they went too fast compared to the old diesel-buses !

[siampolee]

To be fair most of the B.M.T.A. buses are pretty well maintained, the problem is the contractors to the B.M.T.A..although there is some improvement in that area too..

The contractors buy the clapped out heaps of fecal matter on wheels when they are sold by the B.M.T.A. tart the heaps up and then they are let loose on the public and the streets.

Driven in the main by frustrated offspring of failed Kama Kazi pilots the buses are maintained only when they expire in the middle of the road.

Tyres are akin to racing slicks and many an aspiring artist has painted delightful landscape pictures on the canvas of the tyres whilst the buses were held up in traffc jams.

I remember the delights of those lovely little green buses I used some 20 years back and I realized how lucky I was to get a delightful white knuckle ride from Prawet to the end of Petchburi road for the princely sum of two and a half baht.

The thrills of the morning bus race, the detour at Klong Tan and the delighrtful duelling between two or three buses all from the same depot (a shack in Prawet) for the single line track that was the U turn by the canal on Soi Pridi and back onto Petchburi road.

God those little buses were old then but they survived another 20 years only being euthenased about two years back..

Happy days when one had to be a man or a lunatic to use buses I miss those morning adventures now as I walk to work each morning a gentle 5 minute stroll in Naam Daeng.

Stop moaning the smoke screen that buses created then were worthy of a naval convey evading attack..

Edited October 31, 2012 by siampolee