Thai Drivers

[L&J]

Here are some statistics from a Bangkok Post article published today:

From the provincial office of the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) in Si Sa Ket province

.

inspections of about 7,500 vehicles on Thursday

total of 1,844 people were charged with drunk driving

3,935 were arrested for driving without licences

50% had no license and 25% were drunk. I suppose they all paid their fines and drove away.

[cbrer]

Yes. It's Thailand.

And?

[Dancealot]

With these proven odds i will apply for a job as a Thai policeman

Very lucrative.

[cbrer]

With these proven odds i will apply for a job as a Thai policeman

Very lucrative.

Have you seen the price of application lately?

300k just to cheat on the entrance exam!

[Dancealot]

With these proven odds i will apply for a job as a Thai policeman

Very lucrative.

Have you seen the price of application lately?

300k just to cheat on the entrance exam!

Haha that when the cheating starts. Very early in the game.

[cbrer]

Hundreds (yes, actual hundreds without exaggeration) were caught paying 300k to cheat on the entrance exam only a few months ago.

Thailand's finest!

[bristolgeoff]

best drivers in the world,you just have to look at how many can get on a scooter and drive in traffic

[nev]

best drivers in the world,you just have to look at how many can get on a scooter and drive in traffic

And then progress to being motorcy taxi drivers in pattaya

[ubonjoe]

Probably most of these were on Highway 24 coming from Bangkok.

[ubonrthai]

Sisaket to Khu Khan was terrible yesterday. Glad they have check points everywhere to at least slow things down a bit.

[Commander Tamson]

I have lived in Isan for close on 5 years now. Is it just my imagination, or is the driving actually getting worse? - hard as that is to imagine. The stat that says 50% of drivers had no license is probably low. The worst are the kids on motorbikes. Can't believe how they just drive straight out of side-streets without looking. It makes me so nervous everytime I see it. How would I feel if I hit, injured, or even killed, 3 kids on one bike that were laughing and having fun just a few minutes earlier? By the grace of God go I. Of course I could just do what most Thai drivers do and just quickly drive away leaving bodies in the road!!

[maturebrit]

having a licence means little if you have no idea how to obey basic principles of driving. its purely a method of raising revenue. what astounds me is thai licence holders are eligble to drive outside thailand if they have a 5 yr licence.

Sent from my GT-N7000 using Thaivisa Connect App

[khwaibah]

New Year road death toll rises to 71

December 29, 2012 1:01 pm

The first two days of seven dangerous New Year Holidays saw71 people killed and 826 injured, the road safety management committee announced Saturday.

The second day of the seven-day period or on Friday, 495 road accidents were reported and 38 people were killed and 504 others injured.

Drunk driving remained the biggest cause of the accidents. The committee said 32.32 per cent of the accidents involved drunk driving.

The Nation

[FrisoPee]

Good to see the check-points are set up.. Not sure if it will help tough.

[Rancid]

Hundreds (yes, actual hundreds without exaggeration) were caught paying 300k to cheat on the entrance exam only a few months ago.

Thailand's finest!

Becoming a policeman is an investment in the future, why would it be cheap? In fact the bribe demonstrates just how lucrative it is. In the West bureaucrats used to have lower wages but job security as a trade off. These days they are often paid more than the private sector, have enormous amounts of days off for stess and sickness, have longer holdays and can't be fired.

In fact two bureaucrats in Australia were bonking together in a government paid hotel on a useless government paid junket, they were banging so hard ( obviously with more enthusiasm than they work) that something fell off the wall and hit them on the head. They sued the government for damages and stress and won a large settlement.The path is clear, get your kids into the bureaucracy, low IQ requirement, cushy job, high wages, big holidays, intimidate the citizens, good pension and kickbacks in many departments, it is the way of the future.

[sirchai]

inspections of about 7,500 vehicles on Thursday

total of 1,844 people were charged with drunk driving

3,935 were arrested for driving without licences

50% had no license and 25% were drunk. I suppose they all paid their fines and drove away.

Sorry, but that's all bull shit! Those 50% without a driver's license were people who didn't pay upfront, usually 200 baht.

None of them got arrested driving without a helmet. Some baht for the cops fix the problem.

I'd guess that maybe 15 % do have a driver's license all over Thailand, could be 25.--

[mancub]

Hundreds (yes, actual hundreds without exaggeration) were caught paying 300k to cheat on the entrance exam only a few months ago.

Thailand's finest!

They were , however , allowed to re-sit .....for the appropriate fee !!!

[jamescollister]

Buying into the police or other Government job is regional, teaching jobs out here 200.000 Baht, Government and cops about the same . Want to go to the deep south or a bad area of BKK free.

No different than in the west, we all pay one way or another, you want to live in a good place, you pay, rent house mortgages etc. Want to do the same job in some shit hole, they pay you. Jim

[cbrer]

Buying into the police or other Government job is regional, teaching jobs out here 200.000 Baht, Government and cops about the same . Want to go to the deep south or a bad area of BKK free.

No different than in the west, we all pay one way or another, you want to live in a good place, you pay, rent house mortgages etc. Want to do the same job in some shit hole, they pay you. Jim

*splutter*

*cough*

Seems like Thailand's driven another Westerner delusional.

Edited December 29, 2012 by cbrer

[jamescollister]

Buying into the police or other Government job is regional, teaching jobs out here 200.000 Baht, Government and cops about the same . Want to go to the deep south or a bad area of BKK free.

No different than in the west, we all pay one way or another, you want to live in a good place, you pay, rent house mortgages etc. Want to do the same job in some shit hole, they pay you. Jim

*splutter*

*cough*

Seems like Thailand's driven another Westerner delusional.

Don't know where you live, want to be a cop in South Central LA, or Afghanistan they pay you. Want to be a cop in a nice place you pay, one way or another.

Police and Government can have free housing, private health care, free schooling and University for their kids, in Thailand.

Please tell me which utopian country you live in, I may well want to move. Hope it's not the UK as walked a beat in Birmingham for 8 years, not great. Jim

[bitewhentested]

i drive here and have done for 7 years what i cant understand even if they never took a driving test but drove around for a while you would

think they would get better just from practice but they dont seam to and parking how is it they look in the rear view mirror when reversing out of a parking space but stop 6 feet from the car behind and shunt back and forth i think after seeing this so many times its not a lack of talent i think

its a mental or eye sight defect a friend of mine was complaining to his wife how stupid thai people are her answer was have you ever thought

that farangs might just be very clever and thai people are just normal lol i think that is the only time iv ever agreed with a statement a thai has made

[jamescollister]

i drive here and have done for 7 years what i cant understand even if they never took a driving test but drove around for a while you would

think they would get better just from practice but they dont seam to and parking how is it they look in the rear view mirror when reversing out of a parking space but stop 6 feet from the car behind and shunt back and forth i think after seeing this so many times its not a lack of talent i think

its a mental or eye sight defect a friend of mine was complaining to his wife how stupid thai people are her answer was have you ever thought

that farangs might just be very clever and thai people are just normal lol i think that is the only time iv ever agreed with a statement a thai has made

Been here a long time and the parking thing drives me around the twist. They will park a motorbike a few inches from the front of the car, then someone will park a few inches from the back of the car. Roads empty, but they have to park besides a car.

One day, driving the local Governors car, parked across the road from a restaurant where we were going to eat. Pulled over as far as I could off the road, Told I could not park here as the tires would get wet, it was pissing down rain at the time. Jim

[hellodolly]

Hundreds (yes, actual hundreds without exaggeration) were caught paying 300k to cheat on the entrance exam only a few months ago.

Thailand's finest!

Becoming a policeman is an investment in the future, why would it be cheap? In fact the bribe demonstrates just how lucrative it is. In the West bureaucrats used to have lower wages but job security as a trade off. These days they are often paid more than the private sector, have enormous amounts of days off for stess and sickness, have longer holdays and can't be fired.

In fact two bureaucrats in Australia were bonking together in a government paid hotel on a useless government paid junket, they were banging so hard ( obviously with more enthusiasm than they work) that something fell off the wall and hit them on the head. They sued the government for damages and stress and won a large settlement.The path is clear, get your kids into the bureaucracy, low IQ requirement, cushy job, high wages, big holidays, intimidate the citizens, good pension and kickbacks in many departments, it is the way of the future.

And two bureaucrats in Australia in a room having sex has what to do with driving in Thailand?

[cbrer]

Don't know where you live, want to be a cop in South Central LA, or Afghanistan they pay you. Want to be a cop in a nice place you pay, one way or another.

Hang on, are you actually trying to correlate cash in envelope bribes to government officials, as is the norm in Thailand, as to paying a higher cost of living of living in an expensive city?

Police and Government can have free housing, private health care, free schooling and University for their kids, in Thailand.

Or at the rate of 300k baht per entrance exam they could just use the money they'll spend buying their career to buy all of these.

Are you really trying to play-down and condone the procedure of police officers (and others in trusted positions) buying their positions?

Please tell me which utopian country you live in,

I don't believe in a Utopian country.

I live in the most amusing and entertaining country in the World..... Thailand.

Sitting back and watching Thai society is endlessly both..... then along comes a Westerner who thinks he's one of them! It's comedic quality 24/7.

Edited December 29, 2012 by cbrer

[hellodolly]

i drive here and have done for 7 years what i cant understand even if they never took a driving test but drove around for a while you would

think they would get better just from practice but they dont seam to and parking how is it they look in the rear view mirror when reversing out of a parking space but stop 6 feet from the car behind and shunt back and forth i think after seeing this so many times its not a lack of talent i think

its a mental or eye sight defect a friend of mine was complaining to his wife how stupid thai people are her answer was have you ever thought

that farangs might just be very clever and thai people are just normal lol i think that is the only time iv ever agreed with a statement a thai has made

Basically I have to agree with you. Seems like no matter how long they drive they have no sense of space. They can not pass between two parked cars at a decent speed unless they have a minimum of 4 feet on each side. To watch them turn a corner is painful they have no idea of where the corner of their vehicle is in relationship to any thing else in the area.

These are two things you can not be learn in school you learn them by experience.

[thrilled]

ya think Thailands bad now.Ya should have seen it in the early 70's.There wasn't as much traffic.But there were only 3 lanes.One lane for driving on each way,and the middle lane for passing,by either lane,at any time.

[cbrer]

Hundreds (yes, actual hundreds without exaggeration) were caught paying 300k to cheat on the entrance exam only a few months ago.

Thailand's finest!

Becoming a policeman is an investment in the future

No it isn't.

It's a job dedicated to, and based on protecting, helping and serving society.

why would it be cheap?

Why should people be able to buy themselves such positions?

[Diablo Bob]

Another way to look at the issue......

[ubonrthai]

ya think Thailands bad now.Ya should have seen it in the early 70's.There wasn't as much traffic.But there were only 3 lanes.One lane for driving on each way,and the middle lane for passing,by either lane,at any time.

How is that different from today?

[rct99q]

Why should people be able to buy themselves such positions.......I do not believe you live in Thailand. You sound like you are from America where nobody buys themselves a nice cushy job (an investment in their future). It is not like Obama or Romney would have any financial gain in becoming president of the united states. And by gum neither of these two gentlemen paid 300,000฿ to cheat on their "entrance" exam.....