Posted 2007-04-11 13:14:49
 CTM, on 2007-04-11 12:25:08, said:
I don't think the average Thaivisa poster cares anymore about hardships on the poor or rural classes than the rich Bangkok Chinese. Most seem to believe mobility and other freedoms are a privilege reserved to the rich.
Where in this whole topic do you see anything remotely like this?
Everyone I see is concerned about loss of life, not keeping people in their place.
Sorry to throw cold water on the people's revolution but it's a matter of not wanting people to die.
Posted 2007-04-11 14:10:27
ando, on 2007-04-11 14:35:50, said: Thailand is a developing country. Most people are relatively poor by western standards and cant afford a car.
Mass transport in in the backs of pic-up trucks is a matter of econemy rather than choice.
I look back to when I was a kid in my own country here in Australia. No seat belts, no motorcycle helmet laws, and it was not uncommon to see people riding in the back of a pick-up in rural areas. Now things are a lot different, but it didnt happen overnight. Road safety laws were introduced in small increments that could be accepted both politically and economically by the public. Give the Thais a fair go. They are just doing the same as we did in our home countries several decades earlier.
Laws have to be realistic considering their practical application. If we transplanted all the current US traffic code laws to Thailand just to make a few expats and tourists here happy, it would devastate the countries transport system. If some of you guys dont like Thai road laws perhaps you should think about going back to your own countries and leave Thai law making to the Thais.
Food for thought. In developed countries like US and Europe, road deaths of motorcycle riders are about 8 times higher than for car drivers. Does that mean we should ban motorcycles from the roads in US and Europe? Yes, now bring on the advocates for freedom of choice.
Exactly what I was thinking. Especially this one " leave Thai law making to the Thais"
Posted 2008-01-29 17:17:51
chownah, on 2007-04-09 19:56:08, said: I think its a bad law. I think it should be up to the individual whether they want to ride in the back or not. If they want to prohibit someone from the back it should be children although I'm not advocating for this but at least it makes more sense in that children don't usually have the ability to estimate risks well enough to make the decision by themselves perhaps. If someone rides in the back of a pickup they are only endangering themselves and no one else...so why make it illegal. If you think society has enough smarts to determine what risks you should be allowed to take then be ready for alcohol to be outlawed....it is way more dangerous than riding in the back of pickup.
A weight limit seems to make better sense and have more to do with safety.
Chownah
the problem with these individuals when they are dead is that they continue to cost the country money.
If you travel in the back of a pickup you are in much more danger than belted up inside.
If you die a factory loses an employee, a family loses a wage earner, an insurance company loses money and puts up its fees, a hospital has a bill a wife has no support, children have no father, the local bottlo loses it's best customer and has to close....NO individual is an island.
It has been shown time and again that road safety saves a country money.
In developing countries the choice is often travel in a pickup or not at all...so this regulation will not be enforced and will come to nothing because as tyet, Thailand is not ready for it.....there has to be a program to create awareness of road safety....just looking at some of the postings here by westerners shows that even there people still don't have a clue.......
Posted 2008-01-29 22:27:47
Why is it when people move to LOS from other places they want to make LOS just like the place they ran away from. To many governmental laws aready. Next you'll have to where a rubber inflatable suit and gas mask just to walk outside your house. The food patrols in the US are already in high gear, next you'll have to pay a tax for every pound over weight and on and on and on. Stop aready, lets get back to taking personal responsibility for our actions.
Posted 2008-01-29 22:56:46
rken, on 2008-01-29 22:27:47, said: Why is it when people move to LOS from other places they want to make LOS just like the place they ran away from. To many governmental laws aready. Next you'll have to where a rubber inflatable suit and gas mask just to walk outside your house. The food patrols in the US are already in high gear, next you'll have to pay a tax for every pound over weight and on and on and on. Stop aready, lets get back to taking personal responsibility for our actions.
This is exactly what too many drivers here do not do.
Posted 2008-01-30 00:38:40
It is a practical law and well enforced.
I have never seen more people in the back of a pick up than could physically fit in it!
Posted 2008-01-30 07:39:58
Dupont, on 2008-01-30 01:38:40, said: It is a practical law and well enforced.
I have never seen more people in the back of a pick up than could physically fit in it!
Precise 'could physically fit in it' please.
I do see every day, pickups with so many people on the back that those people have to stay stand up (no room to sit). May also precise, the pickup is not driving at 50 km/hour or so, but at a speed that weems to me a dangerous speed, not allowing a vehicle to stop immediatly in case of a kid jumping on the road.
Someone was advocating about personal responsability " lets get back to taking personal responsibility for our actions. " Someone seems to forget that kind of attitude (driving at hight speed with so many people in the back) is simply irresponsible. And I do believe the attitude to accept it on the ground of the so call individual freedom is a mere BS, as the individual freedom of both the passengers and the citizens using on the same time the road include the freedom to stay alive without injuries.
Road are dangerous, everywhere. But usually people try to limite that danger. But in this thread, I see many posters advocating to simply let things happend, because they certainly bet on the amountof dead with the Poo yai; or maybe they do drive like crazed (maybe arethey simply crazed, with not enought blood in the beer), and using the feel superior because they take 14 people from their gf familly on the back of their own pickup to drive then to local Tesco.
Btw us , use your brain 20 sec, do you think your mother in law is so happy to go to TEsco? Anyway she does not have the baht to spend there. You just put her life at risk, while you are making her envious of all those shinny stuffs she can not afford (IF she had the money to have her own car, she would have already buy the shinny stuffs, and certainly not go to a low level place such as Tesco.... Obviously)
Proctecting life is the most important duty anyone can have.
Posted 2008-01-30 08:17:39
The official proposing this ( not elected ) probably has no need to transport people via pick up, so he is not concerned. Wait until the various business who utilize this mode of transport, along with the groups who regularly transport voters, protestors, supporters, workers etc express their thoughts. If it is passed, it will be followed by all motorists, just like they adhere to present traffic laws. Maybe we should call them regulations, not laws as it seems they are seldom followed or enforced. How are the villagers going to travel to the various functions (wedding, funerals, etc) they are not offered bus service, like the city folk?
Posted 2008-01-30 08:19:17
Seems to me to be an incremental approach. As stated previously, if they banned all passengers, the law would be disregarded. With the 4 person rule, maybe people will only break it by an extra 2 people and in the interim understand that it is a dangerous practice.
Anyways, I have seen the results of people getting bounced out of trucks and it's not pretty. More often than not there's a shattered cranium, pulverized brain etc. All in all, not a sight for the squeamish.
Posted 2008-01-31 11:00:26
rken, on 2008-01-29 22:27:47, said: Why is it when people move to LOS from other places they want to make LOS just like the place they ran away from. To many governmental laws aready. Next you'll have to where a rubber inflatable suit and gas mask just to walk outside your house. The food patrols in the US are already in high gear, next you'll have to pay a tax for every pound over weight and on and on and on. Stop aready, lets get back to taking personal responsibility for our actions.
Precisely....and reckless individuals who ride in the back of pick-ups are not taking responsibility for their actions as are people who ride without crash helmets or put children on their laps on motor bikes....if you have an accident a hospital has to fix you up and that is then paid for by insurance which I pay for in increased fees...the money doesn't appear from nowhere.....your relatives either end up looking after you or having to pay for your bills etc etc...it is not "freedom of choice" it is downright irresponsible and if you don't do it on your own accord then legislation is the only course.
Posted 2008-01-31 11:04:20
Create one of the most successful car (truck) pooling traditions on earth and they just want to snuff it out.
Posted 2008-01-31 11:13:15
pooling is to save money....accidents cost money!
Posted 2008-01-31 11:15:30
Pooling also saves the environment.
<agitator>Do you put a handful of lives ahead of thousands of others?</agitator>
Posted 2008-01-31 11:42:53
I want to see the police enforcing these laws on company pickups transporting workers. They can afford modifying their trucks to carry passengers in the back, they should do it first. Perhaps someone will come up with a cheap and practical solution that can later be adopted by the rest.
Posted 2008-01-31 11:48:50
Songteaws just can't handle the increasing population of locals that can't afford their own transport. There needs to be double decked teaws, 4-teaws and 5-teaws (perhaps where you are loaded in like poultry).
Posted 2008-01-31 11:54:27
They should be properly caged, too. Saves lives.
Posted 2008-01-31 14:13:17
Plus, on 2008-01-31 11:42:53, said: I want to see the police enforcing these laws on company pickups transporting workers. They can afford modifying their trucks to carry passengers in the back, they should do it first. Perhaps someone will come up with a cheap and practical solution that can later be adopted by the rest.
you can't safely modify a pickup to carry passengers in the back...they're in enough dager in the cab which is ssub-standard anyway.
Environment - most raod accidents result in considerable damage to the environment....not least of which is disposing of the vehicles. The resecue vehicles rtaking extra people to hospital and the power used in the hospital to power the life supprot machines. Per erg per foot of road the saving on the environment would be better served by banning pichups and their derivatives and introduce pooling in an environmentally friendly vehicle. Pooling is largely cosmetic at the best of times as it is only used in areas where public transport is sub-standard and commuters work uniform hours day in/day out and have a fairly long commuter distance....all of which are environmentally UN- friendly in a big way.
Bodies being cremated also generates greenhouse gases!
Posted 2008-01-31 14:34:38
People in the bed are never as safe as those belted inside, but apparently they issue licenses to song-taews, they must have some conditions for transporting people in pickup trucks.
My point was they should start with business trucks and gradualy expand on to the general population.
Posted 2008-01-31 15:38:33
This is a developing nation so to some extent one can understand the reasons for not having cutting edge safety specification on every vehicle. But the country is very lackadaisical about introducing and enforcing a national policy on transport. Public transport is just chaos. A few headline schemes detract from the whole picture which is that of under-provision and dangerous vehicles and equally important, ROADS. Pickups are heavily subsidised by the govt to keep the manufacturers here happy, but it prevents the advent of safer, more sophisticated vehicles by way of the exorbitant taxes on these other vehicles, so the introduction of a large capacity, safe public transport system is being prevented by successive governments. A good quality system would get rid of the need for Song taews AND motorcys too as well as a lot of the other more primitive forms of transport one has to serve around every day.
Edited by wilko, 2008-01-31 15:47:57.
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