Another Senseless Death!

[KelpieKiss]

If you think Thai traffic is bad...

[buksida]

Don't get me started on the driving here - a near accident EVERY time I get in the car in Hua Hin - yesterday was no exception with arseholes in pickups trying to overtake everything on the road to Pranburi.

[STEVE G]

It’ll be interesting to see what happens in a couple of years if the roads are full of those 100,000 baht cars that Tatra are threatening to build in Thailand.

[redzonerocker]

If you think Thai traffic is bad...

i was bobbing & weaving in my seat, waiting for a collision & mass pile up

[redzonerocker]

on a more serious note,
the road traffic fatality statistics for thailand are pretty grim reading.
it seems there are many contributing factors.
poor legislation & road safety education, enabling young people to begin riding at an early age regardless of their ability & capability.
no real law enforcement regarding the most important, issues such as the dangers of drink driving.
& as mentioned by richard, the blessing rituals of the vehicle giving the rider/driver a sense of invincibility.

where would you begin to address the problem?

its the law that the rider has to wear a helmet, but, the passenger can choose not to! , & when i say the passenger! a lot of the time its the whole family!!

the bad road sense & driving habits are ingrained from a very young age & is accepted as the norm. as big a problem as it is, its one that is going to be a very difficult to enforce change

[huahindolly]

Just wanted to put in my two satang on the issue of traffic and the value of life. For the past three summers, I've worked in Hanoi. Ohmigod. Traffic is horrific there, I had to close my eyes the first time I rode in a taxi in town. Not to mention a motorcycle taxi. Or, being a pedestrian - you simply start walking a straight and steady path, and the cars and motobikes predict where you'll be and try to avoid you. It makes Hua Hin traffic look like Salt Lake City USA (one of the most civil I've experienced) compared to the chaos of Vietnam.

So what?

Comparing the ruination of a child due to pedophelia versus a wrong-way motorbike driver may take a leap of faith. Both meet a grisly fate through no fault of their own; the wrong-way motorbike driver can even wipe out an entire family.

I think that we can best attempt to educate by example, but as guests of a country foreign to us, I don't believe we are in a position to ridicule or criticise the norms of its citizens.

Let's just deal with it (bad driving habits) the best we can according to our experience and knowledge and skills.

HHD

[T.I.G.R.]

I'm sorry to presume Dolly, but unless you've bought a car since we last saw you, I don't believe you have yet had the pleasure of driving an automobile in our fair city on a regular basis.

I wouldn't have believed I would ever be afraid to drive anywhere, but this thread really says a lot more about how difficult it is than you can imagine unless you've had first hand experience. I'm not a stranger to auto accidents either, having nearly killed myself once and witnessing several others do the same.

My wife doesn't dare to drive here, nor our best friend's wife either.

I agree there may be other places just as bad or worse, but our reality is every time we go near Hua Hin we take someone's life in our hands.....most times on multiple occasions in the same trip.

Because the local populace grow up in this situation it probably seems perfectly normal to them, just as the construction workers learn about electric work through electrocuting themselves once in a while......or as the wife says constantly: "they're not afraid to die".

I certainly would not pretend to have an answer but in this particular case we're not talking about complaining for the sake of something to do, or trying to ridicule. I think what you're reading is just a way of sharing a very real and dangerous aspect of living here.....it's too bad that there isn't a better or more productive way to do it, but that seems unlikely.

Take care -

[Norseman]

on a more serious note,
the road traffic fatality statistics for thailand are pretty grim reading.

Quite right (as usual) RZR.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mor_c ... -accidents

[redzonerocker]

here is the stats i was looking at norseman taken from the thai transport.org.
i don't think 2007 will show much improvement

http://thaitransport.org/news/Road_Safe ... nglish.pdf

lets hope that one day soon, the message will hit home & things will improve in the road safety department

[huahinsimon]

[quote="Chas"]
Not to hijack the thread, but child molestation is most certainly NOT a "Western" import! There was a long article in the Bkk Post a week or two ago detailing the extensive history here in Thailand of child molestation and the selling of very young girls (often by their own families) into slavery & prostitution. (Even my spouse's small village in Udon had certain men behaving toward children in ways that would have gotten them arrested and jailed for years in any Western country.

Westerners come here because of the way this society IS and I am including the entire sex trade. Farangs didnt create it, however much you might think we encourage it. . . the Thais had all this going long before the first Europeans stepped ashore. quote]

Chas also wrote: And “I didnt see the connection either, but couldnt let pass the attempt to blame the West for the way Thailand is today.â€

[DawnHRD]

This is a mod post


Lomu has already said this and I would like to add to it.

Back on topic as per dangerous driving, please.

If you wish to start a thread about paedophilia in Thailand, do so elsewhere. No more about it on this thread.

This comparison & the way this thread is heading is making more than just me feel uncomfortable.

, please.

[richard]

we all know some Mods know more than we do

Sure it's a twisted thread but let it roll or separate it into two

All info is valuable regardless of topic or thread

Let's hope HHAD is not going down the tubes because of censorship

[buksida]

richard, some of your comments on here lately have really baffled me - you know the rules mate - I second the suggestion to keep this on topic which is road traffic accidents and nothing more distasteful.

[Chas]

On my way into town this morning during the morning "rush hour", I saw two cars merrily heading down the wrong sides of Petchkasem. But I guess that if you put on your four-way blinkers, its OK to do that!

I do think this is a growing problem here and certainly something to be more aware of. I have come to expect the unexpected whenever I get behind the wheel and much to the irritation of my Thai spouse, I often wont even pull around a car trying for a right turn and blocking my lane where Thai drivers show no hesitation in pulling off this maneuver no matter the oncoming traffic . . .which often obligingly screeches to a halt for them. Unless the traffic is really light, I also won't try the Thai way of making a right turn from the left hand side of the road. .and often just blocking all traffic in those two lanes until there is a space to get in.

The death statistics dont surprise me at all, but judging from those youtube clips of traffic in Vietnam. . .maybe it is worse elsewhere?

[sandman67]

Occasionally my lasses friends borrow a bike to go to the 7, (all of a 10 minute stroll) or come up to the house - invariably they will not wear a helmet even when I offer them one.

They seem to believe that their heads are made of steel....or just dont get the cause and effect equation.

I even try the "how cool will you look when your heads split open and you are bleeding to death on a gurney in A&E..." reasoning line....after that I just take the keys off em till they wear a lid.

There are only two potential ways to address the problem:

1) sack all the police, employ ones that can do the job properly, enforce traffic laws all day all night. Get patrols on the roads. Set up proper speed traps on the main road. Enforce the law. Conclusion - not likely to happen.

2) try a little education in schools.....(a demo they did at my riding school was to take two melons, put a helmet on one, then smack both of em with a cricket bat.....the one in the helmet was OK, the other was not. Instructor explains that your wet impact value of your skull is about that of a thick skinned melon. "Wear a helmet all the time...or die. Your choice".) Show em splatter pics....wheel in a few people that are now in wheelchairs or missing bits. Try scaring the shit out of em.

As someone pointed out above, maybe if the King told them to drive more carefully they would....short of that I don't see it ever changing for the better.