Bangkok motorcyclists beware! - no license and cops will take your bike!

[ben2talk]

On 5/17/2017 at 1:07 PM, Tech65 said:

I am stopped by police for check almost every week when driving my motorbike, never been stopped while driving my car. Indeed I usually never see any car stopped in road blocks in Bangkok, only trucks, pick-ups, lots of motorbikes and some taxis.

My Thai wife drove car without license for months, while making the license, never stopped.

 

Not only that, they don't actually stop you for real offences - mostly for not being in the left lane. Even worse, if you fail to stop for them then they let you go. If you fail to let them have your licence (i.e. just show it to them) then they will let you go and tell you not to do it again. Since 2001 the situation has NEVER escalated for me to anything remotely serious. Once I took a job near Ladkrabang and used the Motorway to get from Srinakarin...

 

The famous 'motorway police' actually came after me a few times and set up road blocks over a couple of days... they're a bit more serious about repeat offenders when it suits them; but nothing came of it. That was 2004 and it's the ONLY time I ever saw them doing anything I might regard 'policework'... and then ONLY because I took a motorbike on the motorway - they never bother cars. 

 

For a year or two I kept my friend's number (he's a Judge) on speed dial. Police would politely wave me on after talking to him on the phone (and I never called him when I thought I was in the wrong).

 

The U.K. has it's issues - I ended up with a 1 month ban in Blackpool because it's impossible to keep L=plates in the salty windy conditions up there... the police stopped me going home with ONE plate on the front, and a new one in my jacket... riding home to get the bike inside and use soap and water to clean the paint and stick the L-plate on. Apparently no excuse.

 

So really, here, the benefit is that when you ignore the police and keep going they're less likely to catch up with you and do anything about it.

 

The world over, people tend to be far less tolerant of bikes than cars.

 

The more you consider the 'law' and look at what really occurs, the more you see it's all a patchwork. For example, the 'no right turn' exits to the Bangna-Trad road - they're actually cutting little exit roads through the concrete barriers.

 

You NEVER see police catching anyone exiting at the IKEA/ Uturn in front of Tesco. THere are many cars that don't realise they cut a small escape road under the U-turn for people needing to exit for the motorway... often you 'll see some pickup waiting to try to dash across posting a hazard. Never any police interference, and no sign of them putting up a camera to monitor the junction from the station.

 

However, the opposite side (with nightmarish congestion around Bang Phli and The Village shopping) has a similar restriction. If you don't exit at the U-turn, you end up passing your exit by a few KM. There is actually a hundred metres to make this exit - merging on the outer two lanes and not a problem merging to get across the expressway entrance - yet I saw police just past there on a number of occasions about 2 years back. This year they haven't been out once.

 

They do actually try to catch cars there as well as bikes... but really it's a bit of a bad joke. You know that this isn't 'enforcement'. That's just their tag for 'money pot'.

 

With the standards of signage, road markings and design, it'd actually be interesting to find out which are legal, which are illegal (just stuck up by police as an excuse to catch folks) and which are actually helpful.