Traffic cops offered cash to turn down bribes

[MarkGM1957]

This is scary... I'm not going to hire a car in Thailand anymore because I fear that the police will stitch me up in order to cash-in on 10kTHB.

In fact, I am going to give Thailand a miss...Take my family somewhere else.

Bye-bye 'AMAZING THAILAND'.

[LennyW]

Shocked, stunned, speechless - so whats next......

[OPG]

I just drove into Bangkok and had not read this article, but on my way in, I saw many police on the highway stopping motorists and was curious to why in the heck there are so many of them within short distances; NOW I KNOW WHY! LOL!!!!

I came in for the day and will return home soon...I'll be sure to obey the law today, but before I leave home, I have to pay a a ticket received a while back, so I've got to visit the Police Station...maybe I'll get a citation upon entering.

[HeijoshinCool]

So, let me be sure I have this right:

They are being offered a bribe, to turn down bribes?

[SinCityGr8One]

Bribe a Cop to not take a Bribe? Up is down and down is up? Timepieces run counter clockwise. Dogs sleeping with cats! WOW! the fact of the matter is that The Tourism Authority of Thailand does it promotion of the Kingdom under the banner of "Amazing Thailand". And boy,oh boy, they aren't joking. How true it is! But, in reality, the banner should be "Welcome to the Twilight Zone"! You're traveling through another dimension - a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. There's a signpost up ahead: Your next stop: the Twilight Zone of Thailand!

[Always18]

Hey guys.............a bribe is a bribe is a bribe..................get it?

[Chaz1819]

Paid money to not take money! You couldn't make this stuff up!

[FangFerang]

This is a salary raise at the expense of the cop's victims. The cops will go on as usual, and ALSO tag some random victim for a bigger bribe because the bribery charge has a much bigger fine than a traffic ticket and involves jail time.

Even a good fiction writer couldn't make this crap believable.

[MarkGM1957]

WOW---- looks like the cost of bribes just escalated from a few hundreds of THB to over 10.000THB. Thats what one must now pay the police in order to trump their internal incentive....


TAKE A BIG WALLET WITH YOU IF YOU HIRE A CAR IN THAILAND

[darrendsd]

Hey BIB, want some fast money. Accuse a farang of offering a bribe.

Sigh, take that chip off your shoulder, believe it or not the BIB do extort Thais as well.

Really? How unsurprising. Perhaps you can explain to me why the "fines" my TGF is asked to pay increase when I am in the car with her?

Or why my ex-wife was found negligent when a drunken Thai man, unregistered and unlicenced, veered onto the wrong side of the road, and their bikes collided. The explanation we got was that she had a farang surname/husband and could afford to repair the damage to both bikes.

If you actually read what I wrote then you will see that I said Thais get extorted ALSO

I did not say that only Farangs get extorted did I?

I am well aware that Farangs get extorted however a lot of TV posters seem to have a belief that it happens to Farangs and only Farangs, you can normally spot these people a mile off, they walk round with a massive chip on their shoulder muttering You only fined me coz i'm a Farang

Edited October 7, 2014 by darrendsd

[Thailand]

Classic.

It just gets better.

[seabass69]

While we're at it, let's offer pre-paid credit cards to atm scammers so they don't scam atms, nubile virgins to the rapists so they don't rape, and gold necklaces to all the lady boys in walking street

[NCC1701A]

ok bribe the cops to not take bribes... I am glad I did LSD in the seventies. It really helps me be able to keep my perspective here in Thailand.

Edited October 7, 2014 by NCC1701A

[Bluespunk]

Hang on, isn't it normally the police officer that initiates the bribe?

No. Many expats put some money with their Driving Licence or other documents when they are controlled by police, that they made a fault or not. This kind of attitude is a bad thing who clearly encouraged these bribe with police

Not just expats. Are you seriously suggesting Thais don't do the same?

[Bluespunk]

This is scary... I'm not going to hire a car in Thailand anymore because I fear that the police will stitch me up in order to cash-in on 10kTHB.

In fact, I am going to give Thailand a miss...Take my family somewhere else.

Bye-bye 'AMAZING THAILAND'.

I don't think they'll have to stitch anyone up. Offering bribes to avoid a ticket is apparently so common that they'll have plenty of candidates to choose from.

[englishoak]

Made my day..........

[khunpa]

More silly ideas... ... Whats next?

[Poppy Dave]

The problem I see is that some poor bugger will be singled out and falsely accused of offering a bribe, it's then your word against his.

The only way around this is to NOT carry any money with you and then CAN'T offer a bribe if you can't complete the transaction................................................... Does that make sense ?

[rubl]

Hang on, isn't it normally the police officer that initiates the bribe?

THere is progress with the broader public participating, somehow.

I mean, when a person sees a police officer starting to put a wheel clamp on one of the wheels of his car ... ... ...

[khunpa]

Does anyone know if John Cleese has started taking consultancy jobs abroad lately??

[noahvail]

Well, I reckon it's time to get me a spy pen to back up the dash cam...as in, step out of the car please.

It's pretty hard not to carry at least some cash inThailand. In NZ, it was rare, everything was on Eftpost (ATM) cards or credit cards. But here, a bribe offer could be 20 baht, so you're pretty much screwed. So let's see, what are my choices? Lazada, eBay...

[The Deerhunter]

Time to get a car cam to protect yourself from a 10.000 THB extortion!

Most car cams only point forward but you can turn them on manually and just have audio. Just have the person in the passenger seat video across the driver to the policeman with their smartphone at any traffic stop. Many people do it anyway. They do NOT like it. Now you have a reason to do it. "To prove that no-one offered a bribe.'

[The Deerhunter]

It would be better to give them a good salary[fullstop] take a bribes and not only would they loose their job but could end up inside.

People used to knock the the good old British traffic warden but their priority was to get the traffic moving rather than issue a ticket, there was never any incentive to issue a ticket, unfortunately they have mostly been replaced with parking enforcement officers with targets to meet just to raise revenue for local authorities.

Ive mentioned it before but HALVE the force double the salary

Yes most of them do not spend their time doing even 50% police work from what i understand.

[EyesWideOpen]

Looks like the solution to avoiding a false charge of bribery is to video the incident

when you are stopped. So start the phone camera as soon as the policeman walks

up to your car. When he sees he is being filmed, he will not be stupid enough to

try to go with the false accusation of bribery charge.

[bongoz]

Where is reward to public who report police who ask for bribe ?

NOBODY has enough money to pay for those rewards ...

[bongoz]

The really sad side to this decision is if the police actually carried out their jobs and fined EVERYONE who broke the law, they would make more money and actually PREVENT many deaths on Thailand roads! Slowly the driving culture would change in Thailand, as peoples hip pockets would be getting lighter.

[jaywalker]

Hey BIB, want some fast money. Accuse a farang of offering a bribe.

Sigh, take that chip off your shoulder, believe it or not the BIB do extort Thais as well.

Really? How unsurprising. Perhaps you can explain to me why the "fines" my TGF is asked to pay increase when I am in the car with her?

Or why my ex-wife was found negligent when a drunken Thai man, unregistered and unlicenced, veered onto the wrong side of the road, and their bikes collided. The explanation we got was that she had a farang surname/husband and could afford to repair the damage to both bikes.

Same happened to me. Unlicensed idiot, speeding in the wrong lane, but she had a farang name, so it was her fault.

[cup-O-coffee]

I am beggared yet again.

[monkeycountry]

While I agree it is basically a bribe to refuse bribes, which seems very TIT, it might actually work. It would make more sense though to offer the reward to drivers who catch a police officer asking for or accepting a bribe - or perhaps do it both ways?

Edited October 8, 2014 by monkeycountry

[BSJ]

Instead of fixing the problem by giving the cops a better wage they create a whole lot of new problems for the people of Thailand. It's an arse about way of thinking!