We started transporting our kids to school some years ago after the minibus driver was spotted (by my daughter)nodding off on the 331 Highway.

14 hours ago, dcsw53 said:

I heard that in some countries they use things called tachographs ( not sure of the spelling ).

 

Apparently these are inexpensive pieces of kit designed to stop drivers of commercial vehicles from being <deleted> driving too fast or too long. It would be shame if they were introduced here, the number of daily news stories like this would plummet.

Tacho's are old technology and were easily falsified, GPS, cameras, optalert are a few options, but what is also needed is yearly heavy vehicle inspections and heavy vehicle driver training by QUALIFIED people.

This is one of those cases where Ya Ba could have been advantageous and kept the driver awake.

Falling asleep at the wheel is a common occurrence.

That would be something very difficult to police and enforce.

15 hours ago, kannot said:

"North American"..................just the one then?

Would this one North American be from Canada, USA or Mexico ?

Just wondering.

17 hours ago, dcsw53 said:

I heard that in some countries they use things called tachographs ( not sure of the spelling ).

 

Apparently these are inexpensive pieces of kit designed to stop drivers of commercial vehicles from being <deleted> driving too fast or too long. It would be shame if they were introduced here, the number of daily news stories like this would plummet.

Tachographs, or the more modern IVMS (In Vehicle Management System) which is a GPS monitered system won't prevent anything. All they do is provide information about how the vehicle is being driven. They'll make annoying noises when parameters are broken but are easy to disable. If you don't have any rule enforcement they won't work and we all know how well rule enforcement works in Thailand.

16 hours ago, possum1931 said:

You mean there actually is a transport minister?? 

 

 

Mr. Arkhom Termpittayapaisith should be hounded by international media like the BBC or Al Jazeera until he gives a hard-hitting interview as to why he doesn't take positive steps to improve the abysmal road statistics in this country and why he doesn't appear in the media to express his horror.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Transport_(Thailand

Drives from BKK to Chiang Mai, picks up the students, then decides to drive back to BKK the same day or within hours....Why not just hire a bus and a fresh driver in Chiang Mai...? Or am I thinking to far ahead,  to much common sense...? Am I to presume the kids were brought from BKK, dropped off at the camp, the empty bus returns to BKK and then, an empty bus returns to Chiang Mai to pick up the kids to return them to BKK....? If so, it seems like a huge waste of time, energy and money.....

19 hours ago, canthai55 said:

 

Wow - Europe still uses these ?  Are the trucks still steam powered ?  North American now uses these - https://eldfacts.com/eld-mandate/

 I have no idea whether vehicles in Europe are still fitted with the automatic recording devices that relied on a card being inserted into the machine or whether they have been superseded by fully electronic ones but the principle remains the same. It's simply a device that records the hours that a vehicle has been rolling, the speeds it has attained and more recently, probably, the exact route it has followed.

21 hours ago, 6thST said:

Most likely the driver was drunk....?

 

 

 

What did you base your speculation on? The guy on the bar stool next to you?

21 hours ago, saminoz said:

If the silly little general would just give the Transport Minister a target to reduce road deaths bu half next year or lose his place at the trough, you might actually see something worthwhile happen.  

Mind you, he'd have to hire in outside consultants to formulate a sensible strategy and see it through.

 

You could say exactly the same about every PM and Transport minister over the last 20 years and nothing is different.

 

You seem to be like many posters , full of complaints but offering no suggestions yourself.

 

Here is my suggestion.

 

The way to fix it would be to actually enforce the laws and do random checks 24/7 by a dedicated traffic police force and a 3 monthly inspection of every bus, minibus, taxi, truck and commercial pickup in the country. That of course would mean a large increase in the work force, and increase the costs to the operators but IF it worked then the accident rate should drop.

 

The problem there is that the extra police and testers must be honest. So who then watches the watchers?

On 22/12/2016 at 3:39 PM, dcsw53 said:

I heard that in some countries they use things called tachographs ( not sure of the spelling ).

 

Apparently these are inexpensive pieces of kit designed to stop drivers of commercial vehicles from being <deleted> driving too fast or too long. It would be shame if they were introduced here, the number of daily news stories like this would plummet.

They do not actually stop the drivers from speeding or driving too long, but just record it. This being Thailand, no notice would be taken of what the Tacho actually records.

21 hours ago, john davis said:

Just keep off these tour buses in Thailand your just not safe at all if you need to travel drive yourself yet another driver falls asleep at the wheel this is the 2nd accident in a few days be safe keep off the buses.......you  have either speeding buses they lose control or falling asleep a lot just have no road sense at all

No road sense just about sums it up. Yesterday i was driving through Maenam Koh Samui,  a concrete truck was following me so close that i could not see his windscreen in my rear vision mirror, he kept trying to overtake, hooting his air horn, but had to pull back several times because of oncoming traffic. Absolute morons.

17 hours ago, George FmplesdaCosteedback said:

Well thank Buddha nobody was seriously hurt.

 

I guess the bus hadn't had the 30 degree test....?

 

Bloody lucky that he had the correct icons hanging from his rear vision mirror.

On 12/22/2016 at 5:26 PM, Thaiwrath said:

 

Most of them get cremated, soon after meeting their demise.

 

Probably to save manpower resources and logistic costs.

Robot drivers are coming soon and no more morons in charge