Hooray! Chiang Mai effectively cracking down on street-parking violations.

[Konini]

I have always been under the impression that you were supposed to indent the start of a paragraph by five letters am I correct?

That was the way I was taught at school, but standards have changed over the years, particularly with the emergence of SMS, email and chat programs and the indented paragraph is dying out. Both ways are now acceptable. I don't send as many text messages or get involved with chat applications as most people do, but I always use the correct punctuation, grammar and capitalisation; I just can't not do it.

I hadn't thought of this before, but having thought about it now I realise now that when I write by hand rather than by keyboard, I do still leave the 5 spaces.

(Something else that has changed is that numbers 1 to 9 are presented as characters, but numbers ten and over are spelled out. There is disagreement over zero).

[northernjohn]

I have always been under the impression that you were supposed to indent the start of a paragraph by five letters am I correct?

That was the way I was taught at school, but standards have changed over the years, particularly with the emergence of SMS, email and chat programs and the indented paragraph is dying out. Both ways are now acceptable. I don't send as many text messages or get involved with chat applications as most people do, but I always use the correct punctuation, grammar and capitalisation; I just can't not do it.

I hadn't thought of this before, but having thought about it now I realise now that when I write by hand rather than by keyboard, I do still leave the 5 spaces.

(Something else that has changed is that numbers 1 to 9 are presented as characters, but numbers ten and over are spelled out. There is disagreement over zero).

Thanks for verification of that fact. I do use paragraphs but some times it is hard to tell it is a new paragraph unless I put an extra line between them. I have been playing monkey see monkey do on Thai Visa. How ever on my e mail's on my computer I always indent. It is natural to me. What is foreign to me is punctuation and spelling.

I do not indent when I am sending messages on my phone. I am lucky to hit the right letter half the time with my big fingers. Any how messaging is in a foreign language to me.

[piewarmer]

The markets just inside the moat at CM gate always have cars and songtows parking...2,3 or even 5 deep , its a pain to drive through there, walking isn't much easier.

none of this bothers the locals at all. I have seen stalls set up on the footpath moat side being removed under police direction, stall holders in tears.

The sunday market on the airport side is a no go zone, tough luck if you forget what day it is...gridlock.

[FolkGuitar]

to true true blue.

It has been 5 days this thread has been running has any one seen any boots in the last two days?

I did. Yesterday, about 12:45 near Sompet Market on Moon Muang Road. Policeman was carrying two sets of them walking near a line of double-parked cars. I couldn't tell if he was about to put them on, or in the process of taking them off.

Were there any on the vehicles? Just carrying them around town is meaningless. Particularly when he is walking by a string of cars he should be putting them on.

The policeman was carrying 30lbs of iron bars, walking in the Thai noon-day sun. It's doubtful he was doing this because he enjoyed the exercise...

[Tony Aparichio]

I saw a cop putting a boot on a car double parked near the wet market on Moon Muang. They really need to station a policeman in that area as well as in front of the Chiang Mai Gate market, where people regularly tripple-park! Better to keep the traffic flowing than give tickets.

Giving tickets is OK. Clamping them can leave the vehicle there for a lot longer. Traffic can really back up at certain times of the day and in a lot of locations.

Bad parking?? like 3 feet from the curb ticket & boot.... Double parking or impeeding traffic bad parking Tow job storage job & ticket. The speed & ease of removing double parkers with a well designed tow truck??? priceless... ... ...

[northernjohn]

Las night about 5:00PM July 16th I saw a truck that was clamped on Changklan in the Night Bazaar. On the left hand side of the street. That is the side generally used to load and unload many things.

Maybe they are going to push this a little farther than in the past clamp downs. Pardon the Pun.

[cmsally]

My neighbour has one of those wheel lock things which he uses if he parks outside his property. Its great because any other cars that come along bugger off and park somewhere else because they think they will get clamped too. Makes the area wonderfully car free.

I should add it is one of the police wheel locks so it looks official. Don't ask me where he got it - mai reu

[FolkGuitar]

My neighbour has one of those wheel lock things which he uses if he parks outside his property. Its great because any other cars that come along bugger off and park somewhere else because they think they will get clamped too. Makes the area wonderfully car free.

I should add it is one of the police wheel locks so it looks official. Don't ask me where he got it - mai reu

If you want one, just take a piece of rebar bent into a J-shape, have a 4x6 rectangle or circle of sheet metal welded to it, and paint it bright yellow. When leaned up against your wheel, no one other than a cop or someone whose really 'studied' all the varieties of police wheel clamps will realize it's not real. A quick look at Google Images will show a dozen different types, and not even include the most common ones used here!

[zippydedodah]

Was out by Wat Suan Dok today and after i parked (legally) got out and noticed 2 cars to the left of me that were clamped and had a big notice stuck on the window... seems they parked in the red/white stripe area...

[Saan]

feel so sorry for you guys advocating change of every day life in los you just don't relies how brain washed and programed you are to events on the other side of the world that have no meaning here.

to true true blue.

It has been 5 days this thread has been running has any one seen any boots in the last two days?

I did. Yesterday, about 12:45 near Sompet Market on Moon Muang Road. Policeman was carrying two sets of them walking near a line of double-parked cars. I couldn't tell if he was about to put them on, or in the process of taking them off.

They must be running out of boots. A couple of days ago I saw a pickup with a rusty chain securing the front wheel with stickers adorning the windscreen outside Suan Dok. Still effective.

[cocopops]

I guess you're right. After all, giving someone a ticket for a vehicle offense usually is more than enough to stop them from ever repeating the offense again...

Oh... wait....

I hope you don't think that's a good point! Because, it's really really bad.

Seems like you think having a dam which stops 99.9999% of the water and no dam at all are the same thing.

I guess in countries where they enforce traffic laws, they must not see any difference in traffic behavior, then in countries where there is no enforcement...

Are you really suggesting that giving someone a parking ticket is going to stop them from parking illegally in the future?

One of the few things we know for sure about human beings is that they respond to incentives - positive and negative. Especially once those incentives have been demonstrated to them.