If someone is involved in a minor accident, as in they are walking on the side of the road and a motorbike hits the foreigner from behind and then both people end up in the hospital, and the pedestrian is a foreigner tourist and the motorbike driver is a thai, but the thai sustains much greater injuries and the foreigner more minor injuries, is it normal that police hold the foreigner's passport waiting for the thai to be released from the hospital, presumably for the foreigner to pay for his hospital bills? how can the foreigner get his passport back? if anybody is the victim, it is the foreigner and he should be having the thai guy pay his hospital bills, but, of course, he has no driver's license and no insurance or anything that would legally allow him to be actually driving in the first place. and what if the foreigner simply refuses, either on principal because its just flat wrong, or maybe because he doesn't have the money? how can he finish his "holiday" and go home?

Go to police in another province, report passport lost, go to embassy, request emergency travel document, leave.

go to your embassy or the tourist police?

It is common practice to hold ID cards until the matter is resolved. Unfortunately this does put a temporary visitor on the back foot, but in itself says nothing about guilt.

Best thing to do would be to contact embassy/consulate.

^{Luckily it wasn't me, but I would never give my passport to anyone to hold. They could look at it and return it only, no more. What if the police ask for it and someone refuses? Would they then procede to charge you with some other fabricated crime?}

You were a pedestrian? I don't see how you'd have liability.

First request nicely for the passport to be returned, then write a nice letter requesting it to be returned to you. Most embassies won't help you unless you've done this first.

If they don't return it, go to your embassy with details of the police station, officer in charge, etc. Your embassy will write to them demanding that they surrender the passport to the embassy. They'll return it to the embassy, you can collect it at the embassy.

This also works for rental companies that take your passport, etc.

This is a slow process (3-4 weeks), so you want to start it early even if there's a good prospect that they'll return the passport on their own accord.

Not me, a friend of mine came to visit me here, and he's only here for a 4 week holiday, and this happened about 11 days into it, last week, and he's scheduled to fly back to europe on the 1st and has no passport at the moment. the police shouldn't have ever taken it and he shouldn't have ever given it to them, both big mistakes, but no use crying over the past. now he wants to get his passport back by the end of the week so he can get the hell out of here without further bumps, bruises, scrapes and damages to his wallet. he already paid quite a bit for the ambulance and emergency room and hospital care as a result of this, surely not to be reimbursed by the one hit him either, as it seems most thai's don't bother with the basic legal things like getting cars registered, getting car insurance or even having a driver's license.

This is why we have Embassies here, you contact embassy and talk to an advocate. They also have Law firms here to help.

Why after being hit by a thai on a mortorbike you did not consult legal counsel.

Go to the Embassy re the Police holding the passport; as for loss of funds...Surely with a Police report and the receipt from the Hospital he should be able to claim on his travel insurance.

Under international law, to which even Thailand is subject, it is completely illegal for local authorities to confiscate a foreign national's passport.

Passports are the property of the issuing government and not the property of the carrier. As such, you are not even authorized to give it up to them voluntarily. I would be very surprised if your friend's embassy would not want to communicate this fact to the local police in the strongest terms.

Another good reason not to carry your passport.

They are not allowed too hold your passport - Illegal to due so

They are not allowed too hold your passport - Illegal to due so

You be sure to tell them.