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Driving in Thailand
Most people never drive
along a guide line painted on the road surface. Quite
common is to watch video and TV in the Thailand car -
but the TV or video screen is mounted just above the
dashboard. This and others leads to the fact that
Thailand has one of the highest accident rate, but not
only with cars or Thailand pick up cars. Accident rate
with small motorbikes is around 10 times higher.
Trucks are roaring and the people have only
very little to no willingness to stick to any traffic
rules. That means run the red light, drive against the
one way road, drive a Thailand car on the wrong
side of the road, drunk driving is common after around 9
pm.
The other day I drove from
Phuket to Bangkok on the highway No.4. The drive was
around 9 hours and I saw 9 heavy accidents .
4 times a large truck with
trailer was laying in the ditch. 2 times a full loaded
Thailand pick up car went into the ditch and 3
times a small motorbike was laying on the street and a
person too. This is incredible, only on one ride to
Bangkok.
The problem is that no one
cares about the other. In a Thai car the driver always
think he is the only one in the universe.
The driving license can be
bought "under the table" for around 1000 baht and off we
go, no training, no driving lessons, no knowledge of
traffic sign, no knowledge of even the most basic
traffic rules , that leads to chaos on the road.
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Thailand is the
number 2 pick up car country in the
world after the USA. But not only pick up cars, almost every serious car
company on this planet is producing cars in Thailand,
only some
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exotics - somehow erotic - like Porsche,
Ferrari and that kind are not assembling car's together in Thailand.
The reason why pick up cars are so popular
in Thailand is twofold. Number one is that this kind of
car is much more less expensive than usual passenger cars because of different taxations. The other reason is that Thai people are
very mobile, they just bang their belongings on the back and go. Many
times one can see pick up cars filled up with the stuff from the house driving to a new destination.
It is also very popular to pack a small size restaurant on to
the back, make a exploration drive and offload the whole stuff
on a suitable corner or pavement. The soup will boil quickly
afterwards. Its called mobile money, you can go anywhere like
this in Thailand and earn some money.
One of the most popular cars in the
moment is the new Toyota Fortuner - only a Japanese can create
this name -, awful isn't it -. But in general the car is quite
good, beside of the fact its only a Toyota pick up where the
loading area is swapped with a cabin. Unfortunately under the
surface one will find just the usual old trash design from the 1960
ties, fixed axels etc.. The car has a permanent 4 wheel drive,
its rather unlikely that anyone in Thailand will go into rough
terrain with a car.
Since almost all Japanese and
European cars are manufactured locally there is a bold business
with spare - car parts. Even whole systems like turbo systems
for a wide range of cars is manufactured locally.
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Car rental and insurance
If you drive in Thailand one of the most important things is to make
sure to have a - first class insurance cover- don't go for less
as full coverage with car rental car rent. Just to give you a
idea, Phuket
- which is a rather small island- register ever
year around 200.000 accidents, mainly with motorcyc -thaiglish
for small motorbike- usually 100 - 150 ccm.
It is very likely that you will have an accident with one of them since
they have absolute no traffic education and don't care about
anything, but if you have an accident with one of them it is
common practice to put the blame on the
foreigner even if its absolute for sure -for you- the blame is
on the motorcycle driver.
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Due to the nature of the motorcycle - there is no metal wall around them
- accidents are easily fatal and then you have a real
problem. If you are with a rent car don't do anything,
just let the car rental company handle that and if you
cant come out this way for some reason have a talk with
the police guys usually they are quite polite and
helpful and somehow materialistic minded, they will
help. |
It is of no use to go over the level of
the local police to handle the case, if you go to the law court, it will take very long time and they usually
decide according to the police suggestions anyway.
Basic is to
keep in mind that no one in Thailand takes traffic rules
serious, or maybe even know about this peculiar thing, the
winner is always the one who thinks he is faster, more tough
etc.
If you
encounter a very slow car you can be sure the driver is drunk,
unfortunately very common, or maybe he or she has a small TV
mounted just above the steering wheel so they can watch TV
during driving, that means one eye is on the TV and one eye on the street. This cant end good, everyone know this, but there
are many local people
who think they are "stronger" and they can
do it, they
don't understand physics.
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