Off-season rains cause worst traffic jams in Bangkok and provinces

[phil2407]

Wet season finished only recently - so not sure why roads so slippy - maybe the locals don't believe in rain in January and just think mirage

[AnotherOneAmerican]

Having to reside in Bkk must be like being married to a fat hairlipped hag who you stopped loving decades ago.

You met my wife??

You know my ex-wife too?

Damn, she got around a bit!

[Pib]

Yup, and of course the cars have to wait on the spot of the accident untill the insurance arrives.

Yes indeed that is so so outdated and stupid and time it was changed. In most countries you exchange details like vehicle registration number, names and insurance companies and take you own photos if you have a camera or smart phone on you and then if drivable you drive off and clear the road for traffic. The current system here is so totally idiotic in this respect.

If nobody is injured or killed and the vehicles can be easily driven away, then there is surely no need at all for even the police to be involved as indeed I know that is the case in the UK where all the minor accidents (most of them are indeed minor) are sensibly quickly resolved and the road cleared within a few minutes in most cases. Sure some of the few good things like this they do have in the UK still should be looked at and adopted here too, as we all can and should of course learn from each other in an intelligent world.

I remember my car being run into by another care clumsily in a car park and had to wait there over two hours for the insurance guys to arrive and totally destroyed my planned out day. I was really fuming over it as indeed the damage was also quite small. Total stupidity IMHO and also affecting other totally non involved other road users, really crap this is as most folk Falang and Thai would surely agree.

In Thailand when there is an accident most people "with insurance" definitely want to wait until the insurance guys shows up to take pictures, make an accident report, get names, etc. In fact, they can be very reluctant to move the vehicles until the insurance guy gets there. Otherwise, later on the driver at fault is surely going to deny being in the wrong in any way and probably be asking the other guy for compensation to fully play out the "I'm not at fault" part. Waiting for the insurance guy is probably more important when a farang is involved in the accident.

Most of this is caused by Thailand not having "No Fault" type insurance and other associated liability laws...instead, its pretty much everybody suing the other guy or filing a police complaint for compensation.

[siam2007]

Having to reside in Bkk must be like being married to a fat hairlipped hag who you stopped loving decades ago.

I absolutely LOVE to live in Bangkok and wouldn't wanna live at any other boring, dangerous (Bangkok is incredibly safe considering its size) or polluted (welcome to the yearly haze of Chiang Mai every February - April) City / town in LOS.

oh, and two Airports are near, so it's incredibly easy and convenient to enjoy lovely travelling to all amazing and interesting places Asia has to offer.

LONG LIVE KRUNGTHEP, our beloved cute Monster

[moe666]

It's not the weather. It's the morons and arrseholes behind the wheels.

yep, just like backin the states.

[Pib]

It's not the weather. It's the morons and arrseholes behind the wheels.

yep, just like backin the states.

yea, but the morons and arrseholes in the states is probably a much lower percentage of the driving population since they know the police actively enforce driving laws; but in Thailand there is little to zero fear of the BIB catching a person for a "moving" violation like speeding, tailgating, running a red light, dangerous lane changes, etc., unless maybe being in the wrong lane while making a slow speed turn at an intersection where a bunch of BIBs are waiting around the corner in the shade with ticket books in hand.

[Fiddlesticks]

Are the off-season rains different then the rainy season rains ?????????? No of course not, the idiots behind the wheels.

Yes, and if you were a 'knowledgeable' driver you would know that. When roads and highways have not had rain on them for an extended period, oil and rubber build up and become very slick when it eventually rains again. As a knowledgeable driver, we know to drive much more carefully until the rains have a chance to clean these built up deposits off the road.

[slapout]

there do seem to be a lot of people who ''wake up in a new world'' everyday around. the exception is if its something that benifets them personally, then they seem to remember it.

i have noticed this even in menial tasks, like turning the coffee pot on when they open the resturant for breakfast. forgetting to bring utensils to eat your food, and then they stare at you with a noncomprehending look when you mention it.

i have come to expect the traffic mess when it rains, but it appears to surprise many, hope they make exception when behind the wheel.

[bobthomas]

Having to reside in Bkk must be like being married to a fat hairlipped hag who you stopped loving decades ago.

You could not give me free lodgings and beer in that place yet like Chiang Mai huge condo,s are springing up all over the place. I can stand by the pool on the 5th floor of our condo and count 4 large cranes and 3 smaller ones on the horizon looking toward Maya plaza. Glad I do not have a birds eye view of the rest of the country.

The entire country is a "runaway train" in which greedy developers, middle men and end users, sidestep common sense and build and invest in tens of thousands of new condos and houses at overly inflated and unrealistic prices in places in which the infrastructure can't even support the people that live there now!

Defaulting on loans means nothing to these people! The corrupt nature of the system allows people to obtain fraudulent loans and default on as many properties as they wish- but they still get to keep the properties they have paid into at the begining of the ponzi scheme.

How can you lose in such a system? The country collapses- but people don't care, as long as they can get their Golden Parachute.

The difference being- although this is what happened in the west with the credit default swap, here in Thailand, it sin't just the rich bankers- everyone is in on the scam, whether they are aware of it or not is quite another matter.

Bob (The nanny)

[bobthomas]

My wife was in a taxi coming back from Issan last night in the rain, & only 10-15 vehicles in front of her, not 1, not 2, but 3 coaches all collided with each other & spun off in all directions she said..!

(Sorry she did not say where this was).., but told me she could not go to sleep due to witnessing so, so many car-accidents due to mad drivers in the rain..mainly SUVs just barrelling by them on the main highway, when they must have been able to see the traffic ahead was moving slowly..BAM..she said these idiots just slammed into the back of other cars..she said she was scared their pick up would be hit from behind also by these nutters..TiT.

I remember driving down highway 7 a few years ago. It starting raining like the Dickins- I slowed down and the other drivers just flew by me doing over 100 KPH. Ten minutes later I caught up with three of them. Their cars were upside down in the ditch. What amazes me is that Thais (and Farangs in Thailand) are such terrible drivers, I'm surprised there are not more accidents! In the West- people would ram you with their car of you pulled out in front of them at the last minute, but in Thailand everyone just slows down and, "allows" this kind of intrusion to happen. In fact drivers count on it!

[Cuchulainn]

It's not the weather. It's the morons and arrseholes behind the wheels.

yep, just like backin the states.

Where's that?

[rametindallas]

Having to reside in Bkk must be like being married to a fat hairlipped hag who you stopped loving decades ago.

Hey, fat hair-lipped hags need lovin' too. I love Bangkok but then, I don't have to commute or drive when it is bad traffic/weather.

[Tomtomtom69]

Thailand has a rainy season that lasts 4-5 months correct? yet people are still surprise by rain while driving?

In lower Thailand it rains almost throughout the year. Have you heard of the flooding down in Yala, Pattani, Narathiwat, Songkhla and Nakorn Sri Thammarat for example? That's been happening over the past few weeks and this year has been particularly bad, same as north-eastern Malaysia, especially Kelantan, bordering Thailand.

Indeed upper Thailand has a rainy season of 4-5 months and while it doesn't rain much during the dry season, there are no guarantees either. I remember heavy rain once in early January in the golden triangle area of Chiang Rai, on a boat trip out to that Lao island where you don't need a passport back in 2003 I think it was. It's the same thing now; I mean, I was a little surprised about the rain shower experienced in Bangkok on December 27th, but given that, how much more surprising should another bout of rain that occurs less than 2 weeks later be? Now come on, really...

Dry season simply means little rainfall. It doesn't mean NO rainfall. Same as wet season, which doesn't mean full on, non-stop rainfall. It just means relatively high amounts of rainfall, relative to the rest of the year.

[beowolf2012]

it's the tires better rule thanks....

Have see many cars with no zigzag around the tires.

I'm from Denmark and there is a rule for zigzag in the tires last time I here about it was minimum 2 cm and up....

this will keep the car buses and truck strait on the road off Couse they also have to keep the braking distance..............

[thaibeachlovers]

They talk as if the rain is some unkown phenomonen that no drivers have ever seen before.

Normal drivers when it rains have the capacity to adjust driving style to meet the conditions.

Same thing happened in Saudi after first rain of the year. They forgot that the road got slippery when wet after months of dry weather and had hundreds of accidents, usually caused by going too fast around bends.

[thaibeachlovers]

The problem is the amount of oil-slick that builds up on the roads in the dry season. Two or three years ago coming back from Kanchanaburi the downward slope of the Pinklao bridge was like an ice rink after a brief shower. Nothing gripped the surface and buses, cars and horrendously bikes, were sliding all over the place. So exercise due care on wet roads when it's been dry for too long.

So you think we are so thick headed we don't already know that ?

Many don't.

[thaibeachlovers]

there do seem to be a lot of people who ''wake up in a new world'' everyday around. the exception is if its something that benifets them personally, then they seem to remember it.

i have noticed this even in menial tasks, like turning the coffee pot on when they open the resturant for breakfast. forgetting to bring utensils to eat your food, and then they stare at you with a noncomprehending look when you mention it.

i have come to expect the traffic mess when it rains, but it appears to surprise many, hope they make exception when behind the wheel.

forgetting to bring utensils to eat your food,

Depends on the restaurant. Many have a box with utensils on the table. Took me a while to realise that one.

[F4UCorsair]

They talk as if the rain is some unkown phenomonen that no drivers have ever seen before.

Normal drivers when it rains have the capacity to adjust driving style to meet the conditions.

But 'normal' is at best 5% of the drivers. The rest, regardless of level of intellect, are incapable of reasoning, let alone rational reasoning, and it's a worldwide phenomena, not restricted to Thailand.

[F4UCorsair]

The problem is the amount of oil-slick that builds up on the roads in the dry season. Two or three years ago coming back from Kanchanaburi the downward slope of the Pinklao bridge was like an ice rink after a brief shower. Nothing gripped the surface and buses, cars and horrendously bikes, were sliding all over the place. So exercise due care on wet roads when it's been dry for too long.

So you think we are so thick headed we don't already know that ?

Many don't.

I agree tbl.....MOST don't, and are incapable of seeing/knowing that, even when they see vehicles in front lose control.

Ah well, they make us in the 5% look even better. Every cloud has a silver lining.

[F4UCorsair]

It's not the weather. It's the morons and arrseholes behind the wheels.

Exactly Cuchulainn. By far the greatest number of road incidents (not accidents because they are forseeable) are nose to ta,il, yet 95% of drivers still tailgate.

There are very few true road accidents, incidents that can't be foreseen. Insurance companies are eagerly awaiting the day when the technology that brakes a vehicle automatically if it gets too close to the car in front, is standard on all cars. A few manufacturers already have it.

Edited January 8, 2015 by F4UCorsair

[catmaninoz]

^ sounds more dangerous.

Any "tech" that takes control off the user not a good thing.

[Varangkul]

Having to reside in Bkk must be like being married to a fat hairlipped hag who you stopped loving decades ago.

You could not give me free lodgings and beer in that place yet like Chiang Mai huge condo,s are springing up all over the place. I can stand by the pool on the 5th floor of our condo and count 4 large cranes and 3 smaller ones on the horizon looking toward Maya plaza. Glad I do not have a birds eye view of the rest of the country.

The entire country is a "runaway train" in which greedy developers, middle men and end users, sidestep common sense and build and invest in tens of thousands of new condos and houses at overly inflated and unrealistic prices in places in which the infrastructure can't even support the people that live there now!

Defaulting on loans means nothing to these people! The corrupt nature of the system allows people to obtain fraudulent loans and default on as many properties as they wish- but they still get to keep the properties they have paid into at the begining of the ponzi scheme.

How can you lose in such a system? The country collapses- but people don't care, as long as they can get their Golden Parachute.

The difference being- although this is what happened in the west with the credit default swap, here in Thailand, it sin't just the rich bankers- everyone is in on the scam, whether they are aware of it or not is quite another matter.

Bob (The nanny)

And does this exchange of information help in any way with driving conditions on the roads?

[Benmart]

"BANGKOK: -- The off-season rains this morning in Bangkok and several provinces in upper part of the country caused many road accidents in the city streets and on highways and subsequent traffic jams,"

Rain may be a contributing factor in road accidents. However, tailgating, speed, mechanical problems, drivers under the influence, aggressiveness, poor skills, etc. seem to all be blamed on the rain.

The traffic jams are partly caused by exceeding the capacity of the infrastructure, poor signal coordination, poor road networks, pedestrian crossings, etc.

Blame the rain. Blame the alignment of the planets. Blame Karma. Blame everything except the overcrowding that is prevalent in many large cities.

I'm sure glad I live in Chonburi Peovince and walk most everywhere.

[eddie61]

hab lain, load him slipely

dibe slobly!

roo mai?

mai roo loh!

Edited January 10, 2015 by eddie61

[SiSePuede419]

As a sunny, desert dweller with less than 10 inches of rain a year, I laugh at the Thai/Farang Hi-sos in their Mercedes, Farraris and Lambos all stuck in traffic behind the Suzuki Swifts.

555

Edited January 11, 2015 by SiSePuede419