The perils of driving

grozza no offense taken, i am surely not a crazy driver , i always drive defensive here and you always need 10 eyes i say,
so in this situation i knew nothing would happen , i am not going to cause anybody an accident ( head on collision) at my account..., i leave this for the thais, the are the experts.....

Their driving is terrible.But theres only A couple of things you can do.Be patient put up with it,or do what some people have done and stop driving alltogether.After 40 years of Thailand driving i've seen very few changes,except more vehicles on the road.

Occasionally drivers make mistakes or find themselves in circumstances that require they find their way back in to your lane, easy enough to differentiate and to yield.

However takes patience of much higher level to silently yeild to the aggressive tactics by drivers who obvioulsy and recklessly attampt to simply steal the right of way, in order to save themselves an imminent red light or a few car lengths in a line. They put you at risk, and you must hit the brakes when normally you should not have to. Then you find yourself right next to them at the next red light, or they pull over 50 meters ahead to stop at their destination. Many were born and raised on motorcycles so are used to driving with such agility.

I tried to explain the concept of "right of way" to my wife. She does not get it. She only knows "compromise." Not in her dealings with me or those we know, just on the road with strangers, where it actually seems to mean "give in to the stronger (jerk)."

Correct me if I am wrong as we don't have many where I come from, traffic circules are meant to ease the flow of traffic. All drivers should enter with caution and merge allowing a continuous flow. Though in Thailand drivers speed up as they enter so as to exclude the possibility of others merging in front of them.

I will usually stop when a pedestrian or group is waiting to cross in a cross walk, if traffic already going so slowly so as to safely stop. Thankfully said pedestrians are smart enough not to take it for granted that the other lane of traffic will also stop, as the other lane seldom does, even though they can obviously see why I am stopped for the people in the cross walk. Another chance for them to get ahead I suppose.

driving is one of the most stressful and dangerous things you do in life,what im trying to say if it means you have to let someone in front of you even though there in the wrong then so be it because sometimes that moment when you get worked up could have a domino effect.ie you argue with your wife over what happend or someone else and the rest of the day your stressed out,i like that issan saying now dont jump on me if i miss spell it.bor bpen yung.

grozza wrote:driving is one of the most stressful and dangerous things you do in life,what im trying to say if it means you have to let someone in front of you even though there in the wrong then so be it because sometimes that moment when you get worked up could have a domino effect.ie you argue with your wife over what happend or someone else and the rest of the day your stressed out,i like that issan saying now dont jump on me if i miss spell it.bor bpen yung.

My feelings exactly but it has taken many years for me to put it totally into practise. My wife now understands what a twit is , I've said it so many times .

I drive in Thailand with the assumption that everyone here is out to kill me.

You can take comfort in that you are a better and more intelligent person, if you let a poor driver/idiot get the "right of way".
It nags me too, but after many years of driving I agree with most of the writers, that the main thing is to get your loved ones and yourself thru traffic safe, not to beat some stupid busdriver.