Travel in the same car as a drunk driver and you could be charged too, says Thai govt

[chasntong]

Plenty of driving/riding laws already here but how often do the police use them, there is a fortune in fines riding around Pattaya every day, no helmets, 3 on the bike. underage etc.

 

Implement the laws you already have.

[fruitman]

3 hours ago, saminoz said:

Good luck finding a Bangkok taxi with a sober driver!!

 

That's absolute BS sir!

[Harold the Great]

Perfect I love it. Let's see one of the regulations in Thailand is you are allowed two persons on the front passenger seat.  Can one be sober and the other drunk offsetting the requirement for charging the drunk passenger along with the drunk driver?

Now that I have lived here long enough to understand stupid reasoning Im now learning to formulate stupid questions too.

 

 

[anon4637435435]

I dont get this. More and more laws but with regards to laws that already exist they are pointless. For years we have had to call on the boys in tight brown s to help out in certain situations. Never, ever have i ever seen a policeman do anything apart from rip off motorists. Wouldn't they be better to go actually catch criminals first with laws that already exist. Why keep adding when these guys clearly havent got any idea what a law is. Oh yeh they are the criminals. I keep forgetting where i am....

[wombat]

'Travel in the same car as a drunk driver and you will be charged'

 

i don't disagree with this at all.......it makes a lot of sense.

[balo]

Relax, Prayut was only talking about drivers influenced by alcohol.    So it¨s still ok with yabaa, the drivers already increased their daily intake so you should be safe. .  

 

 

[anon4637435435]

Its ridiculous. So now there will be a new scam for van and taxi drivers etc.. Play drunk.... And the passengers get stung. How would you always be aware the drivers drunk. 

More laws full of holes for extortion purposes. After all the police have to be able to make enough money as easy as possible. Its there reward for all their hard work on keeping quiet i guess. They couldnt blow the whistle on any such real corruption. Isnt that why dum laws like this pop up and police only ever stand road side. 

Go catch criminals starting at the top first i say.

[BuckBee]

Will have to breath test my taxi drivers before use them lol.

Had a drunk one last week and had pull him over and tell where go as almost killed us.

Would be worth charging government services if ask me as it those lapse idiots that keep the laws and regulations useless ...

[cardinalblue]

Another distraction strategy instead of diligent enforcement....

[Harold the Great]

This entire country is getting so <deleted> stupid that I'm seriously considering leaving. The last straw was when I realized I did not want any of my family members or friends to come here to visit me as I have become embarrassed that I'm part of this sham. I certainly don't want any of my adult children exposed to these criminal thugs and put into a vicarious positions by the mafia/police/government etc. I'm really disgusted with how uneducated the vast majority of these people are and especially at their non functional moral compass. I know many people will say then get out! They are correct.

[nong38]

Some good ideas but need to think through the process and affects before anything becomes a law.

Lets start with everyone wears the seat belt and no one uses the phone whilst on a bike or vehicle and get the police to enforce the.

[fruitman]

1 hour ago, Harold the Great said:

Perfect I love it. Let's see one of the regulations in Thailand is you are allowed two persons on the front passenger seat.  Can one be sober and the other drunk offsetting the requirement for charging the drunk passenger along with the drunk driver?

Now that I have lived here long enough to understand stupid reasoning Im now learning to formulate stupid questions too.

 

 

 

That's allowed depending on the last name  of the drivers.

 

Watching tv while driving is allowed though,  a tv in the car or huge tv's along the road with commercials, same as being on the phone while driving.

 

Oh i'm wasting my time again, nothing will change of course. All my friends drink and drive and i'm not talking about 1 beer too much...Some have also caused accidents while drunk and got caught again with DUI..he had to leave his (brand new) car at home for some weeks though.

 

But the Thai even don't have to be drunk to misbehave in traffic, just look at the passengerbus drivers how they drive in BKK. Even too lazy to use indicators, stop on the middle lane of mainroads to let passengers in/out while causing much congestion...and so on....The police thinks it's all great and can't be bothered. In 14 years i have only seen police at checkpoints, never seen them do anything while patrolling.

[chuang]

7 hours ago, Gweiloman said:

What if the bus or minivan driver is drunk?

Guilty as charged. 

[timewilltell]

More and more laws for the corrupt police force to play with.  If you want more laws then sort out the police force first.

[Thechook]

How many tour bus and mini van drivers have been over the limit whilst driving?  Somchia has a few before picking up 45 farang passengers from the airport, Somchia gets breath tested and passengers get arrested and charged.  Welcome to Thailand.

[nausea]

One grows tired of posting. What's the point of new laws when you don't enforce the ones you already have, or let them off with a 20, 000 baht "fine". While I'm here I suppose I should comment on the "Thais are always drunk" meme. In over 10 years of travelling in minibuses, taxis, I've never had a Thai who was obviously drunk. I'm sure it happens, probably more in the tourist areas. I'm fairly confident that if it happened where I live the passengers would demand he stop the vehicle and get out.  It's just not true Thais are always drunk or on yabbah, or something. Most Thais are just ordinary people trying to get on with their lives. This is a tiny, tiny, minority, mostly concentrated around the tourist areas where the money is.

 

[NongKhaiKid]

12 hours ago, khunpa said:

"COULD be charged"... Meaning everything will be same as usual, but we are just airing all our new ideas and tomorrow everything will be back to normal.

They just love the publicity of all the grandiose ideas and fine words and that's about as far as it goes.

[Sig]

I think that when I used to use motorcycle taxis in the last place I lived in BKK, the drivers were drunk about 20% of the time! I felt fortunate enough to reach my destination, mostly on sidewalks, except on days the police were enforcing no sidewalk driving. Just glad I don't need to use motorcycle taxis anymore, an extra fine would be just one more thing on top of it all to worry about :/

[Sig]

1 hour ago, nausea said:

One grows tired of posting. What's the point of new laws when you don't enforce the ones you already have, or let them off with a 20, 000 baht "fine". While I'm here I suppose I should comment on the "Thais are always drunk" meme. In over 10 years of travelling in minibuses, taxis, I've never had a Thai who was obviously drunk. I'm sure it happens, probably more in the tourist areas. I'm fairly confident that if it happened where I live the passengers would demand he stop the vehicle and get out.  It's just not true Thais are always drunk or on yabbah, or something. Most Thais are just ordinary people trying to get on with their lives. This is a tiny, tiny, minority, mostly concentrated around the tourist areas where the money is.

 

I'm glad you had such good fortune!
In my years in BKK, I probably only used vans on average about once every few months or so. I have had a few pretty worrisome experiences with VERY obviously high/drunk drivers. The Thais don't demand any driver stop the vehicle. Seriously, you've been here 10 years and you think a Thai would do that? Most just hold on and hope for the best (same as some bus rides driven by insane maniacs, high or not). I only noticed a couple of people who got off at the next stop after they got on. Nobody is going to demand anything and nobody is going to report anything because they know nothing will be done. By the way, none of the above were in tourist areas. I used motorcycle taxis almost daily in BKK. I'd say that about 20% (maybe a bit less) of the time, the drivers were drunk and reeked of alcohol so bad, I could even smell it with the wind blowing at 50kmph but not so bad as when putting along the sidewalks when I could hardly breathe from the stench.
Driving under the influence in Thailand is a very serious and widespread problem. And it has absolutely nothing to do with tourist areas. It has been a very long term ongoing problem. And it isn't only during the holidays, but here's a taste of the insanity of the numbers (links attached).
A quote from one of them, " In all the above cases alcohol was not reported to be involved, although it often is. It’s said drunk-driving is to blame for around 26% of road deaths in Thailand, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). In an interview with Chiang Mai CityNews, rescue services told the reporter that alcohol was involved in as much as 80% of road accidents. "
Of course, most Thais are just ordinary people getting on with their lives. That doesn't exclude a very serious alcohol/drug issue related with driving. The facts are so manifest, I am astounded that you don't know about it having lived here 10+ years.

https://asiancorrespondent.com/2015/03/thailand-road-deaths/

 

[Srikcir]

1 hour ago, Sig said:

Driving under the influence in Thailand

Some statistics of Thai alcoholism by the World Health Organization (2014):

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/WHO-report-reveals-Thailand-is-reeling-under-a-liq-30236548.html

http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/global_alcohol_report/profiles/tha.pdf

Who - consider that 70.3% of Thais ... recorded as abstainers, the remaining 30% more than make up for those who don't drink.

 

[maoro2013]

18 hours ago, Don Mega said:

A licence with GPS strip in it.... interesting.

Sounds a bit like the special SIMs

[Adeeos]

While the INTENT of this law,, is most likely to get passengers to take the keys away from a drunk driving friend,,,  It will ACTUALLY be used like this,,,  BIB pull over a taxi with 2 farlang tourists in the back,,  taxi driver is, "drunk",  farlang passengers are charged also, , "only $10,000 baht, you can go home,,, here's new driver,,, him only charge you $800 baht for 6 blocks" ,,,, "drunk"  taxi driver gets $1000 baht,,,  BIB pocket  $9000,,,, just another day at the office,,,,,  NEXT! 

[gk10002000]

Make this law, make that law, ignore current laws, don't enforce laws.  Who knows what the laws are?  There is no constitution or firm basis for a rule of law by any accepted international standard

[madmitch]

18 hours ago, Alive said:

Double the fine and jail term for any civil servant, police or military drunk driving. And for once fire them from their service and ban them from any government work or contracts for life.

Double nothing is still nothing!

[Polanskiman]

What about starting by teaching people how to drive safely by implementing nationwide propre driving lessons and proper driving exams? It just takes half day here to obtain a motorcycle or car driving license! No wonder why Thailand is in the top 3 with most dead on the streets. People have simply not been taught safety, driving regulations and common sense while driving.

 

This guy is a total joke and has no vision for this country. He just acts as what he really is: a simple military giving and obeying orders. That's about it.

[aussie11950]

19 hours ago, Father Fintan Stack said:

Good luck finding a Bangkok taxi with working rear seatbelts.

 

18 hours ago, DualSportBiker said:

I think it is meant to put a designated driver behind the wheel. My read of this is that the sober passengers need to persuade the driver to relinquish control and let one of the sober people drive. You can't prosecute a taxi driver for having drunk passengers, so why would that extend to private vehicles?

 

This is about peer pressure; getting the "I'm not drunk, I am fine to drive" idiots into a passenger seat. Pretty sure that is what is meant by "Passengers who travel in the same vehicle as a driver who is found to be under the influence..."

 

 

I have reported many Bangkok taxi's for not having rear seat belts that are accessible. 

The drivers attitude, mai pben rai. 

The lack of responsibility in Thailand has many consequences. 

 

[Sig]

18 hours ago, Father Fintan Stack said:

 

Good post and I agree with it 100% having lived here almost 30 years.

Thanks

[digibum]

23 hours ago, Adeeos said:

While the INTENT of this law,, is most likely to get passengers to take the keys away from a drunk driving friend,,,  It will ACTUALLY be used like this,,,  BIB pull over a taxi with 2 farlang tourists in the back,,  taxi driver is, "drunk",  farlang passengers are charged also, , "only $10,000 baht, you can go home,,, here's new driver,,, him only charge you $800 baht for 6 blocks" ,,,, "drunk"  taxi driver gets $1000 baht,,,  BIB pocket  $9000,,,, just another day at the office,,,,,  NEXT! 

 

Given the intent, why don't they just offer money to the passengers who report a drunk driver?  Instead of punishing someone who may have not known when they got into the vehicle that the driver was intoxicated, give them an incentive to turn the driver in?  They could pay for it from the fines imposed on the drunk driver.  

 

With what is proposed, 99.999999999% of people will just pray to Buddha that they don't get caught.  Because there's a 100% chance the law will be written in such a way as to be as broad as possible.  Sort of like that cop who was filmed accepting a bribe from a motorist.  The police said that they couldn't charge with officer with a criminal offense because in order to do that the person who paid the bribe would have to come forward and file a complaint, which would immediately make him guilty of having paid a bribe to a police officer which is a criminal offense.  

 

Sorry, can't be bothered to keep up on who you can and can't link to but if you google "CORRUPTION CATCH-22" you'll find the story.  

 

But if there was no criminal charges hanging over the head of the passengers, and even a reward for doing a good deed, perhaps they might get people to rat out drunk drivers.  

[digibum]

On 10/5/2016 at 11:39 PM, Thaiwrath said:

Could be risky getting a taxi or tuk tuk then !

 

So what would happen if you were arrested by a drunk cop and he put you in his car and took you to the police station?  

[Don Mega]

59 minutes ago, digibum said:

 

So what would happen if you were arrested by a drunk cop and he put you in his car and took you to the police station?  

 

Nothing unless he gets done for drink driving.