Why can't the roads in Thailand be like those in China?

[Asiantravel]

I live in Pattaya but every two months I go up to Chiang Mai for a couple of weeks so I am familiar with road conditions in both places. Some of the roads in Pattaya city are atrocious.

Yesterday a friend of mine sent me some photographs of where she is living in Yunnan province in rural China. She told me before that things in China are orderly and modern. I have seen the streets in Beijing and Shanghai but I can't believe how well constructed the rural roads are in China.

[Kitsune]

Because all the money earned by the country goes into the country leader's pockets.

It's called corruption.

Same goes for the long awaited BTS, MRT extensions, decent schooling, proper police, etc ...

That's the precise reason why they want to take power so badly.

Edited December 12, 2014 by Kitsune

[Pacificperson]

Have you ever had a flat tire one a main highway in China? Absolutly no one stops to help, not even the cops. I'd rather put up with a bit of bad pavement.

[isanbirder]

It depends on whereabouts in Thailand you are. Most of the main roads at least in the North are pretty good.

A few years back I moved to Buriram. In Buriram the roads are atrocious, but as soon as you cross the border into Surin they improve markedly.

[Ace of Pop]

Could be that one Chinese Company has a greater profit than Thilands G.D.P. Few years back so did Microsoft. This is going to be a Looney Left post as Brits say.

[metisdead]

Off topic nonsense posts and replies have been removed.

[A1Str8]

You go to cm from Pattaya just to see how the roads are?

[WarpSpeed]

I was in China a few years back and the streets were very clean and well kept, very western for the most part, but not enough of them and the traffic was even worse then Bangkok in most places. What I though was hysterical is that though our driving system is virtually identical as an American with more years driving safely then most people there have even been driving, I can't drive there even temporarily without taking their driving test, no rental cars to be had at the time (I heard they were working that out so maybe now you can but not then).

Having said that, there has been wide spread corruption in the construction of the road system there and several instances of supposedly well built and new over passes and such just falling completely off because not enough steel was used, when will this happen to the over pass you're sitting on or underneath? And which one will it be? Scary stuff... They look nice and new and all that but it's paint over a pig in a sense in some instances and the idea of not knowing is very scary in deed. Another thing that needs consideration is that it has only been recently within the past 20 years or so that there has even been a lot of personal vehicle ownership in China, previously it was mostly military and top officials, whereas Thailand has been decades longer so the road system is older and dated, especially in the out lying areas.

[kiniyow]

Thousands of Tour Busses surely don't help the Narrow streets of Pattaya

[Baa_Mango]

I think because they are different countries, things are different

[craigt3365]

I have to agree with the OP. The roads, and infrastructure overall, in China are better. But it's not a place I'd want to live. I've got a few friends there and they say dealing with the internet is very difficult due to the Great Firewall.

But they have some absolutely beautiful roads. Complete with sidewalks no less! Corruption is still rampant in China. But I don't think on the same scale as here. Not sure about that, but it has puzzled me as to why their roads are better.

One thing I really hate there is the constant honking of horns. And the drivers are extremely aggressive. In Beijing over a 7 day holiday, I saw at least 2 people killed. I've never seen that in Bangkok. On guy was a cop directing traffic and they just left him laying there. Sick.

[ignis]

Maybe after the new railway system, they will ask China about doing the roads here ?

Going back a few years, often drove from Germany to Portugal, roads in France were bad [coming from Germany] but then French cars were made for bad roads, into Spain, the roads were in a different class, road warnings, road markings etc 1st class, then into Portugal was very like it was here 11 years ago, back roads back then in Portugal many were unmade, the ones with tarmac had more hole and tarmac missing or fallen away..

Roads on the whole here are much better than 10 - 15 years ago

As a P.S

Super smooth roads here would mean people could/would drive even faster ?

Edited December 14, 2014 by ignis

[Ace of Pop]

Maybe after the new railway system, they will ask China about doing the roads here ?

Going back a few years, often drove from Germany to Portugal, roads in France were bad [coming from Germany] but then French cars were made for bad roads, into Spain, the roads were in a different class, road warnings, road markings etc 1st class, then into Portugal was very like it was here 11 years ago, back roads back then in Portugal many were unmade, the ones with tarmac had more hole and tarmac missing or fallen away..

Roads on the whole here are much better than 10 - 15 years ago

As a P.S

Super smooth roads here would mean people could/would drive even faster ?

So right about Portugal roadsl.Only miss the Atlantic Fresh Fish.Now they have builded Hi Ways with E.U. Cash and no one uses them due to Stupid Hi Tolls.

[uwe_rayong]

I have to agree with the OP. The roads, and infrastructure overall, in China are better. But it's not a place I'd want to live. I've got a few friends there and they say dealing with the internet is very difficult due to the Great Firewall.

But they have some absolutely beautiful roads. Complete with sidewalks no less! Corruption is still rampant in China. But I don't think on the same scale as here. Not sure about that, but it has puzzled me as to why their roads are better.

One thing I really hate there is the constant honking of horns. And the drivers are extremely aggressive. In Beijing over a 7 day holiday, I saw at least 2 people killed. I've never seen that in Bangkok. On guy was a cop directing traffic and they just left him laying there. Sick.

That is 100% true, Couple of month ago I saw a Video on liveleak WARNING !The video is not for the fainthearted ! It was in China in the offical TV news.

If you see video you get somewhat an idea of the road manners in China. Sick is a very polite way to describe it.

[Tomtomtom69]

Have you ever had a flat tire one a main highway in China? Absolutly no one stops to help, not even the cops. I'd rather put up with a bit of bad pavement.

Well you should be able to know how to fix a flat tire yourself. I've had flats in Vietnam and I always replaced them with my spare myself and same in Thailand. Also in Thailand no one really knows how to do anything themselves either, but of course chances are if you need a tire replaced there will be a guy somewhere who can do it for you.

[Tomtomtom69]

Chinese roads, especially the newer expressways are great, for the most part. Even city streets are modern, well-built, clean and have trees planted in the medians or on the kerbs. Thai roads are dusty, crowded, full of concrete dust and have no trees anywhere.

The Chinese authorities have managed to build a network of really good expressways that stretch out all over the country now. Thailand by comparison has managed only a paltry 2 in all these years (what the hell have they been doing all these years apart from adding the odd extra lane to existing roads?!) - the eastern outer ring road from Bang Na to Bang Pa-in, which is just 62km long and the motorway from Bangkok's rama 9 road to Chonburi and Pattaya although the sections beyond Chonburi are a joke and not worthy of being called a motorway or expressway as they are not of expressway standard.

So all in all not much more than 100km of rural expressways in Thailand even though back in like 2002 then prime minister Thaksin promised expressways from Bangkok to Mae Sai, Nong Khai, Padang Besar and Aranyaprathet, amongst others.

Thai roads, while not bad in a regional comparison are pretty damn crap and very much third world in comparison to China.

With an expressway network almost reaching the Lao border from Kunming now and another being extended from Baoshan to the Burmese border town of Ruili, it's embarrassing that Thailand can't even get close to achieving what China has, despite having a similar per-capita level of income to China.

And China also has lots of fixed speed cameras that actually work and send you fines in the mail! It also has a much more efficient E-pass system known as ETC for collecting road tolls, which are levied on highways and expressways outside of cities only, not inside cities.

[Tomtomtom69]

I have to agree with the OP. The roads, and infrastructure overall, in China are better. But it's not a place I'd want to live. I've got a few friends there and they say dealing with the internet is very difficult due to the Great Firewall.

But they have some absolutely beautiful roads. Complete with sidewalks no less! Corruption is still rampant in China. But I don't think on the same scale as here. Not sure about that, but it has puzzled me as to why their roads are better.

One thing I really hate there is the constant honking of horns. And the drivers are extremely aggressive. In Beijing over a 7 day holiday, I saw at least 2 people killed. I've never seen that in Bangkok. On guy was a cop directing traffic and they just left him laying there. Sick.

China wants to lead the world and to bring their country well into the 21st century so of course they are not going to neglect their roads! Come on! I mean, having a good road infrastructure is an essential part of being a world leading society. Every developed country has a good road network and China is now not only working on continuously improving it's own network, but even linking to neighboring countries including rebuilding the roads of neighboring countries that link to China's.

Apart from this, high speed rail is also a massive priority in China, which now has the world's longest HSR network, with links being mulled to neighboring countries. The link from Kunming to Singapore via Vientiane, Bangkok and Malaysia is one of these.

[IMHO]

3 days in, and no-one has yet pointed out two very obvious things:

1) The road in the OP is so new it hasn't even seen a rain season yet (look at the color of the sidewalk)

2) A photo of one road in a country the size of China is a pretty good indicator of what the other million roads look like, fer sure.

[WarpSpeed]

Erm IMHO I certainly did point out the age of the comparing infrastructures as it relates to autos, pointing out that most of the entire Chinese road system is far newer given private car ownership is relatively new in comparison...

On your second point though it is amazing how even in the very small western villages and such the roads are all brand new, that's not to say that some aren't still dirt and such but hell even here in the states we have plenty of our fair share of dirt roads and paths still.

[steve187]

Thailand in 2006 had 50 vehicles per kilometre of road

China in 2011 had 23 vehicles per kilometre of road

The Thailand figure must have increased considerable from 2006 to 2011, so maybe 3 -4 times the traffic, could that have something to do with it as well as the poor build quality of Thai roads