odd thai driving laws

[harrry]

Sometimes I drive with short lights on, as this was common practice in EU until DRL Led lights become standard. I got warning from police a few times at police check point. I heard about only VIP people drive with lights on in daylight, its unbeliveable.

Another thing is, Thais don't know the difference between park lights and short lights. Most of them don't even bother turning the lights on during rain, heavy rain, evening. Sometimes they open park lights which doesn't help at all. When they will learn the importance of lights? Seriously, I'm planning to remove my window tints as I can't notice cars without lights under heavy rain / night.

Good idea tints you cannot see through well are dangerous. One of the few things I agree with Malasia about.

[Tomtomtom69]

Red plates are for temporary use in the province of issue. IMHO said between hours of 6am to 6 pm....I thought it was 7pm.

The police are usually pretty good in Thailand but there are some shady characters amongst them. Just keep smiling!

Well as the sun goes down about 7pm this time of year in Thailand, you can be a bit flexible on this one, but definitely nothing after dark. However, I can tell you that there is almost not a day that goes by that I see red plates being driven in violation of these rules - they are often driven at night, in the wrong province (I can read THai fluently) and thus the number of traffic infringements being committed by the drivers of these new vehicles is mind boggling. Perhaps the authorities should process proper license plates more quickly as the number of restrictions (even if they're not enforced very well) makes driving a red plated vehicle according to the law quite difficult. I mean, if you are on one side of Bangkok at 3 or 4pm and then get stuck in a traffic jam taking you until 8pm to return home you have technically broken the law, but that is ridiculous! What are you supposed to do according to the law then? Stop over at say Central Chaeng Wattana before dark, park your car there overnight, catch a cab for the remaining 30km to your home and come back in the morning by taxi to pick up your car? Come on! There must be some reasonable way around these restrictions without having to pay money by running afoul of this ridiculous law...who ever came up with these laws anyway?

[Tomtomtom69]

i just did a 3400 km drive on our holiday from isan to koh samui, krabi and phuket, only got pulled 2 times, paid 300 baht in total.

must say, fair game as i was doing 130 all the time.so rip off? not really.im ok with the 300 baht as i had been speeding for 20 days.

I'm sure you are a competent driver and do read the road with good anticipation etc. however this is Thailand and the Thai-randomness factor does play a part in everyday Thai interactions where roads and vehicles are concerned.

I too have done Phuket to Khon Kaen in a day, stopped once outside Hua Hin by a moron waving a dim-torch in the middle of the road to receive a lecture about driving fast, I remained cool-hearted and would have given him 500 to shut up and go home and stop creating an unnecessary road hazard by standing in the road waving a dim-torch. No fine or payment requested.

I understand the concern about speed in the minds of Traffic Police as I assume that they get better training and testing than the standard Thai driving test, which is better on theory than practical assessment, so they are aware that the average driver of Thai roads is an accident yet to happen.

As there is no speed awareness practical training, I'm talking about the ability to predict time and positional information, for most (all?) Thais their only hope is a slow motion world where any increased thinking time is beneficial - and to achieve this slowing down is the only cure.

This is why Thai Traffic Police are a broken record about speed.

I feel the risk is that speeding and fines becomes subjected to the same Thai/Farang disparity seen in National Park prices. Farangs have more money so the fines needed to punish a Thai (20,000 Baht a month salary compared to Farang 50,000 Baht/month salary) at 400 Baht for a moving violation needs to be 1,000 Baht for a Farang, does that begin to sting a little and so have the intended desired effect: Slow down.

Already the standard unofficial fine is 100 Baht for a Thai, 200 Baht for a Farang, depending on your negotiation skills.

Given a long run like 800 miles to KK on paper driving at 90 kph would take an extra 5 hours, but Hwy 4 is mostly slow anyway, if you hit traffic around BKK your average falls again so although doing 130 may bring your average up on clear stretches of road and vary the boredom while the Thai family are asleep. Does the reduction in your time to react to the crazies herding cattle at 2am or motorbikes crossing the highway where no crossing exists a few metres in front of the car and the unlit elephants at night being taken to the next tourist town (all these I've encountered) fall into insignificance compared to your ability to stop safety in the space you see available at 90 kph?

Thai road surfaces ain't good; if you like to spend money on frequent tire replacements drive fast at night and catch those pot-holes, there are plenty that will take an axle as well.

The road surfaces, the lack of rain drainage schemes, poor driver standards, state of vehicle maintenance and the ever present crazies - all these factors contribute to the Thai speed limit, it's 90 kph for a reason.

I drive slower these days as we often have kids in the car and not every time can I ensure that they wear seat belts all the time.

What please is a "blue" book? I have no such thing in my car. There is only the insurance policy and the windshield stickers.

Blue Book. This is the Thai equivalent to your Zulassungsdokumente or Vehicle Registration in the US or the Log Book in the UK, it establishes the legal owner of the vehicle and defines the car in terms of the engine size and serial number, the engine emissions and weight for purposes of taxation and the body style and color and the chassis serial number.

Where people have a pick-up and have added a fixed load-space cover (Carry Boy etc) there is an increase in vehicle weight and the taxation rate goes up. If you are reading this for the first time the trick is to find a second-hand company that sells these and buy for 100 Baht a newly dated receipt, now you can go and get it legally registered and only pay minimal taxes rather than attempt to argue about the age of the cover and the back-taxes due.

The engines/bodies serial numbers are the main area of interest when a car is bought/sold or when the annual safety inspection is carried out as the changing of car identities with swapped engines/bodies is common when a car is stolen, changed and resold.

The blue book stays with the owner of the vehicle, if the car is a lease-purchase the leasing firm holds the book book and has their company name entered as the first owner, when you make the final payment you get to be the second owner and your details are entered into the book.

At the back of the book is a record or the annual tax payments made, be warned if you buy a car where the owner has avoiding paying this as the new owner you are liable for these old due-payments. You will not be legal until they are up to date.

Also at the back of the Blue Book will be any special observations, for those very rare personal imported cars there will be a page detailing the importation and the date from when it can be re-registered in another person's name, I think it is three or five years from the day it was imported.

It is wise to keep the Blue Book at home in a safe place as although theft of the car and re-registering with the Blue Book is not simple (they need details of the seller in terms of ID card or passport with valid visa in the case of farang) it is easier to launder a stolen car like this.

In the car I only carry photocopies of the ownership page and the taxes paid page from the Blue Book, and again photocopies of the insurance papers.

I keep all original documents at home. Also at home I keep (photocopies in the past now I use my digital camera) images of the windscreen tax payment sticker and for the motorbike too.

For motorbikes it is a Green Book.

While you are taking a picture of the windscreen sticker this walk round the car every so often and take many photographs showing the state of repair bodywork etc. it takes two minutes or less and you will hopefully never need them - but in the case where you are involved in a crash and seek payment for repairs against another driver - your legal-case for the well ordered state of your car is much stronger where you can produce such pictures of what your car looked like before a drunken Somchai rammed it.

Taking those pictures will take less time than reading this post - time well invested in both cases

No, that's not true. Every person, "farang" or Thai with the right negotiating skills can bargain their way down to 100 Baht or even nothing - there is no "dual pricing" here as you like to believe (except maybe to naive foreigners that speak no Thai and act cocky when they get stopped). Actually in the last 5 or so years of getting stopped only a handful of times, I have paid nothing. Yes, that's right - nothing. I speak Thai fluently and I have a friendly banter with the cops when I make sarcastic remarks about why I shouldn't pay any fine and then I get let off, sometimes with a friendly warning, other times with a friendly smile and a "suggestion" to slow down, which I do for the first 500m or so until I'm out of their sight again, LOL. Even a few years before that (between roughly 2002 and 2007), when I did get stopped (not for speeding but for an "improper" lane change, I would pay 100 Baht maximum, never 200 or more as you say.

And no BTW, 90km/h is way too slow even if Thai highway road surfaces aren't in the best condition, but 100km/h or 110km/h in places, with better enforcement would seem more reasonable to me. Anyway, irrespective of the speed limit, speed limit signs are extremely rare in Thailand (why, I wonder?) and so even the best intentioned person could be forgiven for driving a bit too fast as only those people who have read the road rules handbook would know the real speed limit on Thai highways. Also, even at 90km/h, you are supposed to be given 10% leeway before being fined so 99km/h and below is fine. However, I have noticed that when the cops do stop speeders on certain major highways such as between Nakorn Sawan and Bang Pa-in where traveling around 120km/h is common, only motorists going more than 120km/h are stopped and fined. I know this because I have frequently done about 110-115km/h in these places and I was neither stopped nor fined. On another occasion years earlier, I was stopped for doing 144km/h and I was told by the police that they are catching people doing more than 120km/h - as even the cops know that nobody would turtle along at 90km/h. Only large trucks and the Flintstones would go that slow on Thai highways.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Tomtomtom69

[Cuban]

No, that's not true. Every person, "farang" or Thai with the right negotiating skills can bargain their way down to 100 Baht or even nothing - there is no "dual pricing" here as you like to believe (except maybe to naive foreigners that speak no Thai and act cocky when they get stopped).....

I will repeat in bold what I stated:

Already the standard unofficial fine is 100 Baht for a Thai, 200 Baht for a Farang, depending on your negotiation skills.

The opening gambit for any farang stopped where the police seek a receipt-free payment is 200 Baht, double the rate expected of a Thai stopped in a similar situation. I have enough Thai relatives that wear a police uniform every day to know this is the case.

I too have been stopped for speeding were I have not been fined, asked for silly amounts of money and talked them down and also paid official rates with official receipt issued. I have, as they say, got the T-shirt.