Video: Thai driver takes the biscuit for mad driving - but gets his just desserts!

[bangon04]

On 2/21/2017 at 1:23 AM, cardinalblue said:

Too bad he didn't flip it....

would that cause him to lose face?

[Notadoctor]

On 2/22/2017 at 9:32 PM, Doe John said:

The problem with road safety in Thailand could be layered as:

L    |    CULTURE
A    |    DRIVER EDUCATION
W   |    INFRASTRUCTURE

Going from the bottom up (trying not to write too much):

Infrastructure 
Roads are poorly maintained (random holes, bumps can appear anywhere and will be hard to see because of the bad state of the roads), no speed limits or signs limiting speed (people driving at different speeds decrease traffic flow and contribute to accidents), multiple lanes (4-6 lanes impacts the traffic flow and contribute to accidents, e.g. switching 4 lanes to get to an exit), road signs not put up within a reasonable distance to e.g. an exit, lanes disappearing due to poor planning, road surface markings are many times random and many times it can be hard to tell which ones are new ones and old ones, U-turns (probably the worst one - having a u-turn from the "fast lane" to an oncoming "fast lane" is a death trap), few sidewalks, no motorcycle lanes (instead having them splitting lanes),  poor road planning in general, sometimes no hard shoulder, poor lighting when driving at night time, no follow up or traffic flow analysis (just guessing here) etc.

Driver education and driving schools
Very simple tests, the drivers will not know road signs, the law, how to behave, how to act in case of an emergency, how a car behaves in different weather, how a car works, how to drive in a roundabout, right of way, how and why you should keep distance, how zebra crossings works and so on.

Culture
"There is no law against not wearing a seat belt in the back so I won't wear any", "I've downed 3 Changs but I can drive home, it's not too far and/or if the police catch me I can show off my dads x/y/z or pay the police officer", "I can park at the red and white curb there is another lane people can drive on", "I can park outside this guys home blocking his enter/exit path, he is not exiting now", "The hard shoulder is a great way to get there faster", "Driving without license, no worries", "Driving without insurance, no worries", "Let me just check my Line really quick when I'm on the highway", "I can drive without a helmet, no worries", "Sidewalks are great to use to get there faster", "Cars have the right of way even if you are on a zebra crossing" Tinted windows on most cars, bribing traffic police, etc.

Law and enforcement (cross cutting)
No enforcement of the law (e.g. corruption and it seems like the traffic police, at least in Bangkok, are more concerned with waving their hands to make the traffic go faster and also causing more chaos and traffic congestion) and low fines and penalties if you would get caught. 

You could sprinkle morons on the top of this, just like the guy driving in the video, but those are everywhere and they are hard to get rid of.

road safety is defined by the 5 Es - Education, Enforcement, Engineering, Evaluation and Emergency services..........90% of "incidents worldwide are due to human error - and in fact most - even in Thailand are down to "minor" or mundane" examples that result in tragedy.

there is a Swedish paper o this and picking out extreme examples like this does absolutely nothing to promote road safety or understanding thereof.

one has to be very careful of the term culture - as it's meaning can be misinterpreted and culture in any form is not static.

[Doe John]

16 hours ago, Notadoctor said:

road safety is defined by the 5 Es - Education, Enforcement, Engineering, Evaluation and Emergency services..........90% of "incidents worldwide are due to human error - and in fact most - even in Thailand are down to "minor" or mundane" examples that result in tragedy.

there is a Swedish paper o this and picking out extreme examples like this does absolutely nothing to promote road safety or understanding thereof.

one has to be very careful of the term culture - as it's meaning can be misinterpreted and culture in any form is not static.

Yes it's founded on the Traditional "Three E's" or the "Five E's" - which I think I covered, - just added another layer which of course can argue should be a sub property of one of the three.

It would be nice if you could point out the Swedish paper that researches road safety in Thailand. 

I do not think the examples in my post was extreme, maybe a bit over exaggerated perhaps. I do however think that my post points out that there are a lot of work to do; how to tackle the problem is to begin at the bottom - e.g. categorize incidents in a database, analyze how and why, then begin with the foundation (infrastructure or engineering - roads - lights - signs etc) and law enforcement, education (driving schools and general schools). The first step is to acknowledge there is a problem.
 
If people misinterpret the word culture then they will surely misinterpret many more words, even though I would label them "driving culture" or just "culture". It seems like some Swedish people, however, has a tendency to misinterpret the word culture. Yes, culture is not static and it is not applied to everyone but it tends to change very slowly.
 

[Moonmoon]

Good. Seen too much of these drivers. 

[Notadoctor]

16 hours ago, Doe John said:

Yes it's founded on the Traditional "Three E's" or the "Five E's" - which I think I covered, - just added another layer which of course can argue should be a sub property of one of the three.

It would be nice if you could point out the Swedish paper that researches road safety in Thailand. 

I do not think the examples in my post was extreme, maybe a bit over exaggerated perhaps. I do however think that my post points out that there are a lot of work to do; how to tackle the problem is to begin at the bottom - e.g. categorize incidents in a database, analyze how and why, then begin with the foundation (infrastructure or engineering - roads - lights - signs etc) and law enforcement, education (driving schools and general schools). The first step is to acknowledge there is a problem.
 
If people misinterpret the word culture then they will surely misinterpret many more words, even though I would label them "driving culture" or just "culture". It seems like some Swedish people, however, has a tendency to misinterpret the word culture. Yes, culture is not static and it is not applied to everyone but it tends to change very slowly.
 

"It would be nice if you could point out the Swedish paper that researches road safety in Thailand. " - you are joking, right? Road safety is a science that applies like all science to the world we live in.

If you are going to comment on road safety surely you are aware of recent literature on the subject? Why would you comment otherwise?

 

Edited February 28, 2017 by Notadoctor

[Doe John]

53 minutes ago, Notadoctor said:

"It would be nice if you could point out the Swedish paper that researches road safety in Thailand. " - you are joking, right? Road safety is a science that applies like all science to the world we live in.

If you are going to comment on road safety surely you are aware of recent literature on the subject? Why would you comment otherwise?

 

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