Midweek rant: Road Rage – time for Thailand to face the truth

[Bangkok Barry]

1 hour ago, whatawonderfulday said:

Are you really that blind and stupid or perhaps suffering from permanent memory loss  ? Thaksin was at the UN when the tanks and armed troops rolled into Bangkok in 2006 !!! there was no violence on the streets then.  Going back further I was her during black May 1992 remind me again what happened with the army ?

 

Anyway this post has detracted from the initial item regarding road rage so much now best stop making a fool of yourself further. So no more unfactual diatribes please and lets remain on subject.

 

I am not writing about former atrocities, but what happened in modern times. as you are well aware. Thais have, though, long been seconds away from violence and social media is exposing now just how widespread that is, On the roads, in domestic disputes, at any time you suggest to a Thai that they are wrong or try to discipline them in any way. There can be no less tolerant people on Earth.

[dave_boo]

49 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

I think it has something to do with a daily commute that apparently gets him stuck for ages around Mega Bangna or somewhere.

Quite possibly.  I do get a chuckle out of the inlaws claiming that a 1 km 10 minute wait on AH1/32 is a 'jam'...

[YetAnother]

'face the truth' ?

You are asking the thais to take responsibility?

Never happen

For them ,that is a loss of face

[ben2talk]

14 hours ago, NanLaew said:

It certainly didn't used to be. Even in London, that bastion of you better know where you're going or else I'll drive over you,  the headlight flash was the customary 'after you' indication.

 

Seems that while I have been away, everyone in Blighty is flashing like a European... or a Thai.

 

Maybe it will all revert to normal after Brexit.

During the 1970's I remember it being that way with my parents driving... but through the 1980's I remember learning about this. 

 

Perhaps because I was learning to ride bikes in the early '80s and my friends warned me that someone flashing to 'call you on' is sometimes the wrong meaning and a few bikes got caught out by it.

 

By the time we got to the '90s people were pretty much learning to be skeptical and understanding that you don't need 'flashing lights' to see that someone stops to give you right of way.

 

But yes, you're right - there are still quite a few British drivers that are a bit ignorant on this point. Some people STILL use flashing lights to 'call on' other drivers (sometimes causing accidents by doing so).

 

Some idiots never learn. Actually, flashing lights to say 'I'm coming through' was not the right meaning I wished to convey... flashing lights simply draws attention and says 'I'm here'.

 

I didn't mean to convey it as an aggressive 'right of way' thing - to come up behind someone and flash them is actually very bad - it can stress out many drivers and make them feel pressured into moving out of the way in a hurry possibly causing an accident.

Edited June 29, 2017 by ben2talk

[Dodgydownunder]

One of the very few midweek rants that i agree with. Well said. Weapons of any sort have NO place in a vehicle, including under the seats of motorbikes.

[ben2talk]

15 hours ago, dave_boo said:

Why you mad bro?

I used to go out riding with a guy in England. He had a wife and 6 year old daughter.

Someone flashed at him and he got killed.

Entirely his own stupid fault for thinking the 'flash' meant 'come on'.

 

I went to about 36 funerals before I came here - most of them died because 'some idiot pulled out' or 'some idiot did a u-turn on a blind hill crest'. One left his head on the front of a van coming the opposite way - I guess he failed to realise that when you're doing the apex on a right hand bend you need to keep your wheels away from the white line to keep your head from crossing it...

 

I'm not 'mad', but I do get a little pissed off when people are too busy criticising me for 'breaking rules' whenever I feel like it, but at the same time think they can support using misleading signals because that's what everyone else does where they come from...

It gets a bit tiresome to see people riding bikes with their hands on the levers - so brake lights become a completely useless signal - and people mis-using indicators so that (here at least) indicators can at best be considered a very loose indication of either intent to turn or complete incompetency of the rider.

 

Bike indicators generally suck - they don't give loud beeps and they don't cancel - so you shouldn't always blame the rider. It's about time manufacturers came up with a self-cancel feature (just a 30 second timer would do...)

 

I never actually flash lights - I rode on headlights since about 1990 and switch on high beam as a warning if I think it's needed.

I actually think that 'flash' being an invitation was the better way to do it. Old habits die hard - but then it really just depends on whether you prefer to cause less accidents or continue with your alternative modes of communication.

[dave_boo]

1 hour ago, ben2talk said:

I used to go out riding with a guy in England. He had a wife and 6 year old daughter.

Someone flashed at him and he got killed.

Entirely his own stupid fault for thinking the 'flash' meant 'come on'.

 

I went to about 36 funerals before I came here - most of them died because 'some idiot pulled out' or 'some idiot did a u-turn on a blind hill crest'. One left his head on the front of a van coming the opposite way - I guess he failed to realise that when you're doing the apex on a right hand bend you need to keep your wheels away from the white line to keep your head from crossing it...

 

I'm not 'mad', but I do get a little pissed off when people are too busy criticising me for 'breaking rules' whenever I feel like it, but at the same time think they can support using misleading signals because that's what everyone else does where they come from...

It gets a bit tiresome to see people riding bikes with their hands on the levers - so brake lights become a completely useless signal - and people mis-using indicators so that (here at least) indicators can at best be considered a very loose indication of either intent to turn or complete incompetency of the rider.

 

Bike indicators generally suck - they don't give loud beeps and they don't cancel - so you shouldn't always blame the rider. It's about time manufacturers came up with a self-cancel feature (just a 30 second timer would do...)

 

I never actually flash lights - I rode on headlights since about 1990 and switch on high beam as a warning if I think it's needed.

I actually think that 'flash' being an invitation was the better way to do it. Old habits die hard - but then it really just depends on whether you prefer to cause less accidents or continue with your alternative modes of communication.

Most of the time the 'rules' are good in intent but don't apply to every situation.  Thus I would not consider criticising someone because they didn't conform to the rules 100% of the time.

 

And very few things bother me because of that.  The only way you'll see me get excited on the road is when I'm in the car with the family and some jackass decides to impinge upon my lane.  Not because everyone is jockeying for position (I can understand that) but because they aren't paying attention.  And once I feel that you're putting the family in danger that's when I get upset.

 

I would recommend that you just assume incompetence on the part of other drivers/riders here.  The ability to do a joke of a test without any training and get a license should be telling enough.  Even where I'm from the mandatory training still lets some idiots through who then get on the road and are a danger to others.

 

BMW has self cancelling indicators FWIW...but it seems that a lot of riders don't like them.  I believe it's a 6 or 12 second shut off which is a long way to have your indicators on and I don't quite understand why you'd want them on longer than that.

[ben2talk]

42 minutes ago, dave_boo said:

The only way you'll see me get excited on the road is when I'm in the car with the family and some jackass decides to impinge upon my lane.  Not because everyone is jockeying for position (I can understand that) but because they aren't paying attention.  And once I feel that you're putting the family in danger that's when I get upset.

 

I would recommend that you just assume incompetence on the part of other drivers/riders here.  The ability to do a joke of a test without any training and get a license should be telling enough.  Even where I'm from the mandatory training still lets some idiots through who then get on the road and are a danger to others.

 

BMW has self cancelling indicators FWIW...but it seems that a lot of riders don't like them.  I believe it's a 6 or 12 second shut off which is a long way to have your indicators on and I don't quite understand why you'd want them on longer than that.

GIven the number of times people fail to cancel indicators, I'd vote to have self-cancel as the default on all new vehicles (as with the removal of headlight switches...) especially now, with LED lighting removing the arguments about saving the poor bike battery.

 

With the scooter - travelling at maybe 100km/h approaching an exit - I can see a car approaching behind, 3 lanes out, accellerating until he gets alongside 100m from the junction and then almost taking me out diving in to the inside lane to make the turn. NO WAY will they just cross over behind a bike. They must get in front (but only by about 2 metres) before cutting across.

 

So yes, understanding the ignorance factor helps not get too angry by some habits.

 

Indicators are tricky - you must always be doubly mindful of the fact that they may be switched on and off in either direction entirely by accident. I've seen cars turn right just after indicating left and vice-versa; it scared me a few times, but after a year or two it's written into the 'program'. I curse myself for doing it, but there are times when I've gone through 2 soi's before realising my indicator is still blinking from turning into the first... sometimes I'm just far too busy looking around (especially in narrow sois with markets/pedestrians etc) and it's never really caused me any noticeable problem yet.

 

What's really stunning is to start to think about how much you thought you learned in the U.K. or wherever, and now you're realising that you were relying on other drivers so much to support the system... Now the basic rules are so much more limited - as they really don't contribute much to actual safety in such a random culture - that you must have your brain in 'manual driving' mode to a massively greater degree than you ever needed in Britain.

 

[Stargeezr]

Road rage is not about saving face. It is road rage plain and simple and exists all over the world.

  The guy with the bat, who decided to also cause the motorist to crash his vehicle was not saving his

face, he was out of control and needs serious jail time for causing that accident.  I certainly would have a dash camera                if I lived in Thailand and owned a vehicle. I feel the same for Canada as I see a lot of road rage incidences here

as well. I suspect it is the same in the USA except there are people there who pack guns as well and that is plain

scary.

Geeer