I haven't made the drive from BKK south in about 5 years, and sadly it seems the roads haven't seen any repair work in that span, on what was then a not very good road. Now the road is downright horrible. I wonder how many bent rims and flat tires are attributable to this? Now even the big trucks mainly drive in the right lane. On a tangent to this, why can't the transition from roadway to a bridge be smooth and not have a 3 cm height gap? Not that difficult to construct this transition properly!

South from Chumphon, the road was a mix of 70/30, with 70% being bad and 30% acceptable to international standards.

Is there just no highway budget, or does the budget go into contractors pockets and then only a fraction of the job get done?

I think except for a smallish part the road is in very reasonable condition.