Driving long distances in Thailand

[khunsanuk]

Note: Driving is on the left hand side so keep this in mind when visualizing the examples given.

 

Positioning yourself on the road

 

Basically, any surface that's flat, wide and firm enough to support the weight of your car is appropriate to drive on. Lines on the road seem to be mostly there for decorative purposes and/or part of a deal between local politicians and the paint company. The center line dividing the road in half is the exception, though probably not in the way you think. I've dedicated a separate paragraph to the center line further down on this page. Recently we've seen the addition of thick, perpendicular lines for euphonious purposes. Besides the cool burping noise you tires make when you drive over them, they're there to try to wake up intoxicated drivers before reaching sharp curves or dangerous intersections.

 

As a rule of thumb, on a clear road your optimum position on the road is at 66.67% from the left of your half of the road. (Extreme left is 0%, the center line is 100%) In the West you would drive at 50%, in the middle of your lane, or at 25% in the middle of the left lane on a 4 lane highway. In Thailand, on a clear road, you stick to 66.67% of your half of the road, no matter how many lanes or lines someone painted on it. This gives you good clearance from dogs, kids and farm vehicles on the left, while you keep some space on the right just in case an oncoming car starts an overtaking move right in front of you, U-turns into your lane, or some guy jumps out of the shrubs in the middle of a divided highway. You can vary by plus or minus 15% depending on the penetrability of the partition in the middle. If it's concrete and there's not a U-turn in sight, you could move over a bit to the right. A ditch or shrubs are penetrable so it's best to remain cautious. Just a center line might as well not be there in terms of penetrability.

 

In cities, avoid the left hand lane altogether; it is generally for parking, loading, pedestrians avoiding street vendors, and overflow street vendors themselves as the sidewalks are for motorcycles and early bird street vendors.

 

At traffic lights and stop signs, leave extra space between your vehicle and the vehicle in front of you - motorcycles need space to get through without scratching your paint job. I've taken the liberty to group general tips pertaining to motorcycles together with those for 'Cattle and other large animals' below as they're remarkably similar from a driver's point of view.

 

The center line

 

The center line on undivided roads should not be seen as a separator as much as an *indicator*. It is in fact the most important indicator you have and needs constant monitoring in corners when there is oncoming traffic. Oncoming vehicles have the tendency to cut into your lane when you're in a left turning bend, and at the start of a right turning bend. So watch the center line to see if and by how much you will have to move out of the way. Once you get good at this you may find the time to put the things you will learn in the 'signaling' section into practice to politely indicate you want him to bugger off to his own side of the road.

 

Advanced Positioning

 

When there are obstacles or other traffic, you'll find you're doing constant territorial threat-analysis to calculate your 'unthreatened space'. For example, a car pulling over on the side of the road decreases this space not only by the width of the car, but also by the 'potentially threatened space' needed in case the driver suddenly opens his door without looking for traffic behind him. On the other side of the road there will be oncoming traffic. The potentially threatened space there comes from cars that may suddenly start an overtaking move. You're optimal position is a combination of 3 factors: the area of potentially threatened space, the chance of that space becoming unavailable and the severity of the threat. For example, there is a very low chance an oncoming truck will not have seen you and overtake a slower vehicle right in front of you, however crashing into it is pretty damned severe. On the other side of the road, the pulled over car is much more likely to suddenly open his door, however damage would be relatively minor by comparison. You have to weigh this triad of factors and come up with an optimum spot, then position yourself in the center of it.

 

Signaling and lights

 

God gave cars horns for a reason. When in doubt, use it. Remember the example above about the car on the left who may open his door? Excellent opportunity to use the horn: Two short bursts when in doubt about another driver's intentions is the polite way to go.

If the guy tries to open his door anyway, a prolonged howl of your horn tells him what a moron he really is. Professional drivers, such as those of minivans driving long distances, add multiple extra heavy duty truck horns on their relatively small sized vehicles to appear bigger and claim the space in front of them, much like a howler monkey (genus alouatta) would to claim his territory.

 

Also use the horn when passing Buddhist- or spirit-shrines on the side of the road. Alternatively you could raise your hand and fold your palms into a wai, but this would require taking your hands of the steering wheel which is not advisable. So use the horn instead; Buddha understands and spirits love it.

 

Your indicators can be used at any time, such as to signal to a faster car behind you that he can safely overtake (one blink to the left), or that that there is oncoming traffic (one blink to the right). After the car has overtaken you, he may signal a quick left-right blink to thank you. You can also use the quick left-right blink when you're driving at maximum speed, and you approach a slow moving vehicle driving in the middle of the road. In that case you could do a quick left-right signal to indicate you're going to overtake, you just haven't decided yet on which side you're gonna do it. At the latest possible time you will calculate your chances and dive either way. You can also use your indicators to go straight at an intersection (all 4, the emergency button), or you can signal left-right to the beat of the song you're listening to on the car stereo.

 

It's polite to turn off your high beam lights when there is oncoming traffic. Many older cars will have lights shining in all directions except on the road in front of them; you may be blinded even though they've turned off their high beams. Live with it.

 

You should turn on your lights during rain and at dusk. As you will be the only one doing this, other cars will signal to you to warn you, as this seems to be perceived as a highly dangerous condition. On the other hand, if you forget to turn on your (main) lights in total darkness, everybody will just assume they're broken and nobody will try to let you know.

 

Turning right

 

Assuming your indicators are broken and you still feel like signaling that you're going to slow down and make a right turn, you open the window and pretend you're an albatross taking off. Actually the window will probably be open already because the air-conditioning will likely be broken as well. Fanatically wave your arm up and down until you're sure the driver behind you has woken up.

 

Making sure traffic behind you is aware of your intended turn is especially important when driving on a highway and having to slow down to turn right into a smaller road. Keep looking in your mirrors. If you're not completely sure the guy behind you has seen you, do not slow down and make the turn! (Turn left somewhere down the road, then drive back). This because the worst case scenario in this case is pretty darn worse. (Something heavy slamming in the rear causing you to crash head on into the oncoming traffic).

 

There is a popular alternative to deal with the problem of traffic behind you when having to make a right turn, which is to just move over on to the lane for oncoming traffic, or even the far right side of the road, well before the turn-off. It's not very safe however because there may be a car coming out of the road you're trying to turn in to; if the driver of that car is inexperienced, he may not expect a vehicle driving on the wrong side of the road.

 

Right of way

 

Can be best summed up in terms of physics as: E = mv2 The vehicle with the highest kinetic energy has the right of way.

 

Perceived condition of the brakes of the approaching vehicle is a factor however. If it's an old truck which looks like it may have 25% of it's full braking power left, then there is an inversely proportional increase in his right of way. So the final formula becomes: m * v2 / 0.25

 

Officially, driving on a main road you have the right of way over traffic coming from smaller roads/lanes crossing it. However, if there's a queue of cars from a smaller road waiting to cross / turn on to the main road, they consider themselves part of the same convoy of cars, so when one crosses the road, all the other ones seem to be entitled to follow and traffic on the main road will just have to stop and wait.

 

Traffic light intersections are interesting as well; in those Western countries where traffic drives on the left, cars that turn right at a traffic light intersection would have to wait for oncoming traffic going straight. Not so in Thailand however; cars turning right will make a dash for it as soon as the light turns green. Whoever makes it to the middle of the intersection first gets to go first.

 

The Ostrich Addendum

 

The ostrich addendum to the right of way rule: "Something I pretend isn't there can't have the right of way". By looking at another driver he will know you acknowledge to have seen him so he can cross the road or turn on to the road you're driving on. Use this to your advantage by pretending not to see him; he will be unsure if you've seen him and hesitate, and by the time he realizes you're pulling the ostrich trick on him it will be to late and you will have passed.

 

To pull the perfect Ostrich move, look at the other guy at the latest possible moment as you're driving past and cordially bow your head (see: the Pigeon Head-bob greeting) to thank him for letting you go past.

 

Of course it works the other way around as well: making eye contact greatly increases your chances being allowed to cut in to a lane or on to a road with heavy traffic. Look friendly & helpless, smile, and for sure some friendly dumbass is going to let you cut in, no matter that you just speeded through a ditch past 100 cars waiting for a traffic light and you're trying to cut in right before the intersection. In any Western country you'd surely be beaten up if you tried to pull something like this, but this really shows how friendly Thai drivers are.

 

Maximum Speed

 

What maximum speed?

 

Seriously, few roads in the country are suitable for driving at speeds over 100 kph. Even those multi lane roads with a division in the middle will have U-turns every few kilometers or so, and they will have houses and side streets where traffic enters the main road. The Bangkok Expressway (Toll-way) may be the only exception, but traffic is usually heavy enough to keep you from going really fast there as well.

 

Fines & traffic offenses

 

Police may stop vehicles for routine checks at any time. You will usually not get a ticket for minor offenses, such as missing license plates, not having a driver's license with you or being in an obvious state of intoxication. But if you're out of luck you may be fined. If you really were at fault, always offer to pay the fine on the spot, 100 baht (200 max.), no receipt. Doing it the official way will involve a trip to the nearest police station and loss of time. Fines are usually in the 100-200 baht range anyway. Always be polite to the police officer. Most of them are pretty alright, eager to practice some of their English on you much like any other person. That said, there are some real cunts out there as well. Never pay more than 200 baht on the spot; go to the police station instead and pay the official fine and get a receipt. Overall, give me a Thai cop over a European/American one any time, no matter the offense.

 

Overtaking

 

You can overtake a slower vehicle on any side, provided the surface is free of obstacles and firm enough to support the weight of your car. If the road is wide enough (and sometimes if it isn't) you may be able to overtake even though it's a 2 lane road and there is oncoming traffic. Just make sure the oncoming traffic has seen you (flashing you high beam lights helps) so they can move over to create room in the middle of the road. It's not allowed to overtake on a bridge if the vehicle you're overtaking has more than two wheels, nor is it advisable as there is usually not enough space for oncoming traffic to get out of the way.

 

Be careful of trucks going up-hill. They will do anything to keep their speed; if they as much as blink and hesitate to overtake something then they will have to change gears, stall and their speed will be reduced to a crawl. So only overtake trucks going up-hill after making sure the truck has a clear road ahead of it and is not approaching a slower vehicle.

 

Overtaking at blind curves or before hills is only advisable at nighttime when you can see the glare of any oncoming traffic. If the oncoming traffic happens to be a farm vehicle with no lights then that's just tough; to be safe, don't overtake on blind bends. On small mountain dirt roads, use your horn when approaching corners.

 

Animals, big and small

 

Generally, DON'T suddenly brake for animals until you've made sure there is no car directly behind you. The time needed to verify this usually means you've already run it over, whatever it was. Other drivers do NOT expect you to stop/swerve for animals less than cattle size. Frogs, snakes, birds, rats, chickens, cats, dogs, monkeys, they're all in the same sub-cattle category. These smaller animals may still dent your bull-bar, which, in spite of its name, is hopelessly ineffective against bulls and similarly sized cattle. So needless to say, when you get to the bigger sizes, cows, water-buffalo, motorcycles and elephants you will have to brake and go past real careful. Cows, buffalo and motorcycles can be especially stupid and may walk/ride in front of your car at any time. Elephants are smarter, but are more active at night when their natural nighttime-camouflage color makes them blend in to the darkness real well, so elephants may still come as a nasty surprise. Motorcycles seem to be the culmination of all challenging characteristics into one. They're more unpredictable than cats and dogs, they're faster than cows, more stubborn than buffalo and without lights at night, more difficult to see than elephants. That said, there is no such thing as a motorcycle doing something 'wrong' in traffic. There are only 'right' motorcycle riders, and then there are dead ones.

 

Finding your way around the Kingdom

 

... is generally quite easy. Almost all signs are bi-lingual Thai and English, all roads are numbered and if you invest in a map that shows these road numbers, it's very unlikely you'll get lost. There are only a few challenges: Some of the biggest highway signs will point to the smallest of sub-districts, while not giving you the bigger picture such as what road to take to the next major city or province. Again with a map you can easily verify that this small sub-district is in fact on the same road going to your destination. Be aware that any place name in Thailand can (and will) be spelled in 10 different ways in English, so if your map says 'Pheejit' and the sign says 'Pichitr' then these are likely the same place. Then there are small white kilometer posts along almost every road, which show the distance to the next district and often to the next major town as well. These can give you great confidence about where you are, if you can read Thai. Overall though you'll have a much easier time finding your way around Thailand than, say, France. (Even if you're French)

 

Breakdowns

 

Your car will not have an emergency reflective triangle. So instead you have to forage into the forest and retrieve a collection of small trees, branches and rocks of increasing size which you can put behind your broken down car to warn traffic not to crash into your car from behind. Don't waste time trying to change a tire yourself, just get any passing motorcycle to go get a mechanic in the nearest village. He'll be happy to change it for you, even at 3am at night.

 

Accidents - Who's fault was it?

 

If you find yourself in any accident resulting in damage to one or both of the vehicles involved, you will have to establish who was at fault. This process takes just 5 seconds: Whoever has damage on the front of the car was at fault. Period. This is no joke; the insurance company of a Thai friend of mine preferred to just pay damages rather than spend time to make a fuss over who was at fault: A truck REVERSED and backed up into the front of my friend's car, causing damage to the front of the car.

So I'm not kidding: if you have damage on the front of your car (or you were at least partially to blame for the accident), you do NOT want to wait for the police to arrive as this will only add extra hassle. Meet the driver of the other vehicle at the nearest convenient place (gas station, etc.) and tell him you (or your insurance) will pay for everything.

 

This way of establishing fault has an interesting side effect: It makes cutting into someone's lane a lot easier: As soon as you got your nose in, any accident will be the other guy's fault. This of course means you will have to watch for people cutting into your lane during traffic jams all the time, and most of the time you will just have to let them go if their timing was perfect.

 

Overall you will find that Thai drivers are far more considerate, polite and less aggressive than drivers in most Western countries. The teenage suicidal loons, drunks and un-roadworthy vehicles without lights or brakes are relatively few, but pose interesting challenges on the Kingdom's roads.

 

Cheers,

Chanchao

[limbo]

Great insight and very, very true.