Gen Prawit highlights policy of improving road safety and reducing traffic congestion

[webfact]

Gen Prawit highlights policy of improving road safety and reducing traffic congestion

  

BANGKOK, 31 August 2016 (NNT) - Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Gen Prawit Wongsuwan has highlighted the government’s policy of improving road safety and reducing traffic congestion. 

Gen Prawit chaired the committee meeting on road safety, revealing afterwards that improvements will be made through amendments to laws pertaining to drunk driving, speeding, the issuance of driver’s licenses, bus safety, and the use of seat belts. The amendments aim to ensure that the country’s road safety laws adhere to international standards and prevent accidents as best as possible. 

To address traffic congestion, Gen Prawit revealed that the government’s long-term policies include increasing public transportation and air traffic routes, building more bypass roads, and increasing electric trains. For an immediate solution, the government has instructed Bangkok’s Metropolitan Police Bureau to deploy more police officers to facilitate traffic. 

Gen Prawit also invited the public to utilize public transportation more frequently.

 

-- nnt 2016-08-31

[dominique355]

To deploy more police officers....more road blocks and check points...yeah that's really helping .
Why is this guy micro-managing every aspect of life? Is he some kind of a super genius?

[orchidlady]

I have never heard of air traffic routes as a means to improve traffic congestion.

Are they possibly suggesting allowing multiple drones to carry one or two people each at a time, say in Sukhimvit or Asoke to ease the traffic?

 

[williamgeorgeallen]

only magical 44 has a chance of achieving a reduction in congestion. everything else has been tried. bangkok has about 4% of its land area devoted to roading and it needs about 8%. not sure how 44 can be implemented but the man waving the big stick might know.

[Snackbar]

Teach people how to drive might be a start.

 

How hard can it be?

[jaltsc]

"...highlighted the government’s policy of improving road safety and reducing traffic congestion.  " 

 

These laws are already on the books. The problem is that he has no idea how to implement an effective policy that enforces these laws. I doubt that we are going to stop seeing pickup trucks loaded with workers in the back bed, stop seeing children riding on someone's lap in the front seat, bus drives stopping their regular ingestion of Red Bull mixed with alcohol. 

 

To enforce these safety statutes and policies, there has to be an ongoing police presence on every major road. Which I doubt will ever happen. Let's not even talk about the rural roads and smaller villages where safety helmets are never worn or schools where police direct traffic leaving the school, and ignoring underage children who are driving their motorbikes with 2 passengers...None wearing helmets.

[taichiplanet]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

to deploy more police officers to facilitate traffic. 

you don't want to facilitate (make easier), you need to enforce traffic laws.

[brain150]

21 minutes ago, jaltsc said:

"...highlighted the government’s policy of improving road safety and reducing traffic congestion.  " 

 

These laws are already on the books. The problem is that he has no idea how to implement an effective policy that enforces these laws. I doubt that we are going to stop seeing pickup trucks loaded with workers in the back bed, stop seeing children riding on someone's lap in the front seat, bus drives stopping their regular ingestion of Red Bull mixed with alcohol. 

 

To enforce these safety statutes and policies, there has to be an ongoing police presence on every major road. Which I doubt will ever happen. Let's not even talk about the rural roads and smaller villages where safety helmets are never worn or schools where police direct traffic leaving the school, and ignoring underage children who are driving their motorbikes with 2 passengers...None wearing helmets.

Not a single word about making traffic safer [avoiding accidents] but just the usual Media BS on how safe Helmets make all of us.

Helmets don't avoid accidents just as people in the back of a truck cause accidents.

 

As long as the problem is not addressed and everybody only talks about BS nothing will change !

It's about avoiding accidents to get the traffic safer ... and the only way to do so is to learn how to drive and respect the lives of other people ! 

 

... or the most easy way:

Tell people that they are responsible for their actions - this way you don't need a single law

as harming somebody is always wrong and if you are responsible for the damage you will try not to cause any.

[But this is probably too hard for most to understand]

 

[ALLSEEINGEYE]

how about making roads the go through instead of snaking around and around with 3 way intersections that give the cross street right of way instead of the roads that is going straight through?

 

Maybe stop the police from selling the streets and sidewalks to the extortion taxi's and street vendors which clutter up the roads making it impossible to even get down the roads on a motorcycle.

 

[waldroj]

As jaltsc observes, the most obvious thing (to non-Thais at least) would be the abject failure to enforce the wearing of proper helmets by motorcyclists!

 

Maybe, Ms Kobkarn can share her thoughts regarding her faith in Pokemon Go as a means of saving Thailand's cyclists as well as its tourists http://news.thaivisa.com/thailand/minister-kobkarn-hopes-pokemon-go-will-save-thailands-tourism-industry/151324/

But then again, as per Gen Halfwit's "invitation", maybe everyone should be made to utilize public transportation to free the roads up for the official motorcades.

[petermik]

57 minutes ago, Snackbar said:

Teach people how to drive might be a start.

 

How hard can it be?

Absolutely bloody nigh on impossible here.....

[JonnyF]

Thai police seem to think the best way to ease congestion is to stand at the side of the road waving their hand, signalling everyone to "go faster" while blowing a whistle. I frequently have them waving at me to hurry up while travelling 5kph with a car about 3 feet from my front bumper. Believe me, if I could go faster I would.

 

Also noticed that drivers are getting more selfish. They'll quite happily squeeze through a red light when the junction is already blocked, meaning that all the cars coming the other way have to wait 20 seconds before they can move on green, on a 30 second light that only leaves 10 seconds clear road on green for 3 or 4 cars to get through before it's red again (so they'll try and squeeze through and block the other way, and so on and so on).

 

Driver education and less selfish attitudes could ease congestion a lot. Plus some training for police on managing traffic flow.

 

 

Edited August 31, 2016 by JonnyF

[Jimbo2014]

Thailand has one of the highest police per capita in the world - its not a case of deploying more on the roads.  Its a case of getting them to do the job for which they are employed!

[craigt3365]

With little enforcement of traffic laws, other than some random stops checking for helmets, etc., it's understandable how they drive.  No helmets, no turn indicators, no headlights (even at night) drive the wrong way, etc.  Need to reform the police before anything will ever happen.

[manarak]

6 minutes ago, craigt3365 said:

With little enforcement of traffic laws, other than some random stops checking for helmets, etc., it's understandable how they drive.  No helmets, no turn indicators, no headlights (even at night) drive the wrong way, etc.  Need to reform the police before anything will ever happen.

 

there are a few things they could do immediately:

- invest in traffic cameras that issue fines for vehicles passing intersections when the light is red, and I mean after it just got red as well as before it changes to green

- install speed cameras, not on the highways, but on large urban roads, ideally these cameras should also measure distances between vehicles and issue fines for insufficient distance at speed

- conduct license checks and immediately impound any road vehicles driven on proper roads without a license for at least 30 days, regardless who it belongs to, except if stolen. Parents of minors driving without license additionally must come to the station and pay a fine for child neglect

- make insurance covering damages to third parties compulsory. If vehicles are found driven without insurance, the driver gets a fine and the vehicle gets impounded, same as for no permit

- remove from police the ability to determine who is at fault in an accident, I have seen horrible abuse of this mechanism, let the insurance companies sort it out

[elgordo38]

2 hours ago, dominique355 said:

To deploy more police officers....more road blocks and check points...yeah that's really helping .
Why is this guy micro-managing every aspect of life? Is he some kind of a super genius?

No he is a catch up artist catching up to reality. The laws are on the books enforce them. Make all fines electronically payable so they don't "disappear" Make the traffic laws tougher. Go after the Red Bull heir extradite him put him on trial and sentence him to 25 years of HARD labor. Bring in the TV news from around the world make it a showcase trial. Let that be a warning to the careless elite here. 

[chainarong]

Not to place a too finer point on this subject, which as we all know graces these pages about 6 times a year along with education and drought ,  if I ever knew that General Pawtwit was on a road near me I certainly would either stop at the nearest water hole or fly.  ......................................................

[fish monger]

Helmet law...? What stinking helmet law......

[PatOngo]

9 minutes ago, fish monger said:

Helmet law...? What stinking helmet law......

 

Police officers doing their job and enforcing traffic laws?.....honestly.....get real!

Edited August 31, 2016 by PatOngo

[Redline]

 

Will it have anything to do with enforcement?

[kannot]

2 hours ago, fish monger said:

Helmet law...? What stinking helmet law......

pathetic............room for at least another one in that front  basket

[Winniedapu]

It might be their policy, but it seems clear they have no clue how or where to start making it a reality.

 

More fine words, that will be forgotten by next month.

 

Winnie

[Winniedapu]

3 hours ago, chainarong said:

Not to place a too finer point on this subject, which as we all know graces these pages about 6 times a year along with education and drought ,  if I ever knew that General Pawtwit was on a road near me I certainly would either stop at the nearest water hole or fly.  ......................................................

 

 

Indeed, they are so confident of the affection in which they are held by all Thais, that they bought several new armour-protected cars to be driven around in.

 

Winnie

[CarolJadzia]

That's the problem with the institutionalised thinking that sprouted from the "3 E's" (Education, Engineering and Enforcement) approach, created by the American Motor Industry to distract from the poor safety record of their cars in 1935. The world has changed since then. Unfortunately the "Enforcement" part of the approach has dominated road safety for so long, people have been programmed to think it is the only answer. This along with "Fundamental Attribution Error" has caused the road safety world to have stagnated to the point it is today. 

 

Gen Prawit cannot be blamed for continuing to assume it is the right approach as big names such as the World Health Organisation,  United Nations and the "Decade of Action For Road Safety" are all putting pressure on to him to address the road fatality problem, only they are stuck in the compliance thinking. 

 

We call this blinkered enforcement approach "Safety 1". It assumes that if everyone follows the rules then they will be safe. Problem is that people do not always follow the rules anywhere. In Thailand  they follow the rules even less than most other countries which makes the situation worse. This is down to the majority not being taught the rules of the road to a reasonable standard, and reverting to the rules they do know, the ones learned as pedestrians. 

 

There is now growing support for a new approach. This turns the whole thinking around and comes at it from a different direction. Based on the Japanese "Kaizen" approach, or continuous Improvement. It looks to the system as a whole and how it all works together. The thinking is what is behind the big names in Japanese Industry. It is now being widely adopted as the new approach to workplace safety by many safety critical industries. Generally we call it "Safety II".

 

"Safety II" does not consider the "Humans" to be a problem that needs to be controlled by rules. But instead see's the people as the solution. We are all responsible for our safety, things go right and things go wrong for exactly the same reasons. It is not the "Criminals" who cause all the accidents. But normally just a case of surprises and timing. Normal everyday people doing normal everyday things have by far the majority of accidents internationally, regardless of what the enforcers propaganda says, that is just them focussing on the low hanging fruit! 

 

We are now gaining support internationally for this new thinking. But in a world dominated by enforcement thinking, progress is still slow, hence the continued escalations of compliance thinking in Thailand. This is now leading to stagnation or increasing road fatality statistics not just in Thailand. France and the USA have focused mostly on trying to enforce safety and their road fatality rates are going up.  People are discovering - you cannot enforce safety on a system. It only leads to "Hyper compliance"  

[lvr181]

13 hours ago, Snackbar said:

Teach people how to drive might be a start.

 

How hard can it be?

 

Farang commonsense is not allowed! 

[spidermike007]

One has to wonder if there is any sincerity behind these proposals. They are so long overdue, and the country is so deficient when it comes to traffic safety. Thailand remains #2 in the world in traffic fatalities, and is fast catching up with Libya. Maybe the TAT can brag about that too. I have never seen a speeding ticket being issued here. I have heard stories, but of all the days I have spent on the highways, have never seen one. On many occasions I am traveling at 120kph, which I consider the maximum safe speed on a Thai highway, and people shoot past me doing 150-180 kph. With all of the obstacles, outlets, U-turn lanes, slow trucks and out of control drivers, reasonable speeds are required if one is concerned about survival, and the preservation of ones limbs, and one's family. 

 

There is so much to be done, one does not even know where to start. I suppose adding another 2,500 highway patrol cars would be a good place to start, and taking the existing highway patrolmen to the wood shed for hanging out in the office, and playing cards, pokeman and watching you tube would also be a good start. Get those guys out onto the highways. They only seem to show up after an accident. Another good place to start would be to start writing 10,000 baht reckless driving tickets. My guess is the word would travel around the nation in a few days, and people would start to consider that, when driving like banshees from hell. 

[sahibji]

19 hours ago, Snackbar said:

Teach people how to drive might be a start.

 

How hard can it be?

very hard unless they want to learn. in the rural areas, in particular, many people just drive around without licences.

[sahibji]

very ambitious plans indeed. my only concern is the time frame for enforcement because unless these policies are executed expeditiously they might become obsolete  with the growth of traffic on the roads.

[sahibji]

18 hours ago, taichiplanet said:

you don't want to facilitate (make easier), you need to enforce traffic laws.

and you need to have the proper road infrastructure to carry the traffic.

[sahibji]

19 hours ago, orchidlady said:

I have never heard of air traffic routes as a means to improve traffic congestion.

Are they possibly suggesting allowing multiple drones to carry one or two people each at a time, say in Sukhimvit or Asoke to ease the traffic?

 

why budget airline do take away a lot of human traffic away from the roads and better intercity connections are available the need to drive will be reduced. however, it is not a total solution but part of the transport network.