Thai Transport Min emphasizes on safety measures of public transport

[SOTIRIOS]

..state the obvious......and do nothing about it.......

[drdoom6996]

My god my motorbike has to be inspected every year and I'm the only one I can kill on it. <deleted>!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[fxe1200]

One issue regarding road safety has never been mentioned here: The connecting link between the road and you, inside or on a vehicle, are the tires. Until today, I have seen nobody taking care of the right tire pressure. Even at certified motorcycle shops they do not have a tire pressure gauge. Tires are filled up to 60 or more PSI (depending on the power of compressor) everywhere. If this is happening to a bus running at at a speed of 100km/h, one front tire may blow up and the bus will run out of control. Exactly this happened to a friend of mine, who asked his wife to check the tire pressure of his pick-up. The rear tire blew up, went through the mudguard and smashed the tank filler neck. He was lucky having an engine running on diesel fuel.

The lack of quality of tire tubes for motorcycles is a danger for all motorcycle riders in Thailand. The recommended tire pressure will escape within the first days after a refill with a loss of 1 PSI/day. That means, if you want to be safe, you will have the tire pressure checked every four days. A decent tire pressure gauge with a clear reading between 0 and 60 PSI is available at Tesco for 189 THB. Make sure, to fill up a tire 10 % more if your tire is hot, i.e. if you just came off the road.

Edited July 25, 2013 by fxe1200

[rafish]

The trick is"Enforcement," of safety measures Sir.

[fxe1200]

The trick is"Enforcement," of safety measures Sir.

It is not a trick, and if, it is nonexistent. Therefore we should support all efforts to communicate safety measures, even when it only happens within this message board. I do not like to hear from folks, who squeezed the tire off their rim, or ran out of road due to the lack of grip.

[mrfill]

"Transport Minister Chadchart Sittipunt has urged the Transport Company to inspect their vehicles at least every 2 years, adding that a driver should not drive longer than 8 hours per day and has to stop every four hours when on a long trip.

As for trucks, the minister said he wanted the truck companies to inspect their lorries more often than once in every 3 years as now required as well as to regularly check their drivers’ health condition, adding that all companies have to be strict when recruiting their drivers."

How about having a mandatory independent test every year?

And say that a driver MUST NOT drive more than 8 hours total in a day and MUST NOT drive more than 4 hours in a stint and enshrine it in law.

Trying to implement safety policies on a suggestion basis is doomed to failure. If the company's ignore the helpful suggestions, nothing happens (except more crashes)

Of course, the operating companies will say they cannot afford to do any of this, nothing will be enforced and the carnage will continue.

Greed wins again.

[deecee10]

Thais have usually only ever experienced situations in Thailand and are not shocked by what happens on the roads.

They think that what passes for road safety is the norm.

Western standards of vehicle maintenance, driver education and road safety responsibilty mean nothing to them.

That's why these comments by the Transport Minister will have no impact (perhaps not the best choice of word) at all.