Politics and Driving in Nang Rong

It’s election time in Nang Rong

I just wrote about our first four wheeled vehicle. A CNN news article today said there are now 800 million vehicles on the road and by mid century that could go to between 2 and 4 billion. The claim is that we are approaching gridlock in many parts of the world. It was written by someone from Ford Motor Company so I assume they meant four wheeled vehicles, because in this part of the world there are a whole lot more two wheeled vehicles.

This is not news to me, since we are just about to gridlock here in Nang Rong. At least half of the time I have been out in my four wheeled vehicle lately I have had to pull over and wait, maybe even back up a bit, or cause the other people to do the same. Yesterday I just had to stop in the middle of the street until people parked some ways out from the curb on both sides of the narrow street finally moved.

Nang Rong was built before there were motorcars, and Thailand has taken a great deal longer to acquire a significant number of cars than the US. Especially up here in Nang Rong. Well, we have them now. The streets are narrow, buildings built to within a few feet of them, leaving a narrow sidewalk which is usually loaded with shop goods so everyone walks in the street. View at corners is blocked by buildings so the average cornering speed, even off the main highway into Nang Rong, is about 2 miles an hour with your car coming within inches of the cars waiting at the light to go the other way.

Not the most narrow street in Nang Rong, certainly not the busiest, just the street in front of my house. My driveway is on the right just past the green stripped awning. One way traffic works here. It is a two way street, for motorbikes anyway.

Cars are relatively new here. Many even older people have just recently learned to drive them. They are not reckless or dangerous, you have to be young to be that, and most of the young people still don’t have that kind of money here. Their elders are very slow and careful. They may not yet have learned where the car is and so may park half a car’s width or more from the curb, which makes streets hard to navigate when the person on the other side parks that way also. Add traffic coming the other way and now it is impossible.

Some informal Thai rules of the road:
• Do not go the wrong way on a one way street unless it is for a short distance. Of course if you are a motorcycle one way does not apply.
• If motorcycles are parked at the curb you may park away from the curb outside of them.
• When you stop at one of the three lights in town leave space in front. If you don’t the motorbikes will go around you anyway, and those that don’t fit in front will get stuck beside you, making it that much harder for you to get going without knocking into them (narrow streets, remember?).
• Always use your turn signals when ready to turn. The motorbikes are going to pass you anyway, but you can influence on which side.
• Always watch out for motorbikes. Remember the “reckless and dangerous” young people I referred to above? Well guess what they drive.
• If you get a phone call while driving on the highway your natural Thai caution has you slow down to a few miles an hour – on a blind corner with possible high speed traffic just out of sight.
• When doing road maintenance on any road, even a major highway it’s OK to have an abrupt 6 inch change in level with no warning. Going down these is really not too bad, but going up them…
• Don’t EVER ride a motorbike fast at night (see above).
• If you need to do something really unusual or crazy, just turn on your flashers and everyone will understand.

Taken out of my driveway. He starts coming by at 7:30 AM. Do you suppose he bothers someone else even earlier?

This leads me to the next traffic problem: elections. Fortunately they only have them every four years. For a town of this size there are an unbelievable number of speaker trucks driving around town very slowly while making the most noise possible. They start on my street at about 7:30 AM every morning. The worst offender is candidate #3 (out of about 16). The announcer, with great excitement, yells his name several times in a row and then goes on to tell of his greatness in such an excited tone that it quickly leads to emotional overload and exhaustion. He comes by a number of times each day. Multiply that by 16 or more candidates and you begin to understand. Each candidate may have many trucks. They are all over and moving slow. At one point I saw six of them in a row, for different candidates, all with speakers going full. Whether a Thai could understand any of that I don’t know. I surely could not.

Six sound trucks, different candidates, all going full blast.

So, is it safe to drive here? I would say yes, it is overall. Certainly a lot safer than some other countries with which I am familiar, like India. if you try to keep to the daylight hours, and avoid holiday evenings when more people are drunk. I know more people here recently involved in accidents than I do in the US. The rate of severe injury and death from accidents is not so bad, because driving here is slower. Some things are safer. Riding a motorbike in town here is much safer than doing that the same in town in the US. The town is built close together, streets are narrow, you go so much slower, especially when there are lots of sound trucks. Actually, for motorcycle accidents, I know more people in the US…

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  1. September 1st, 2011 at 04:47 | #1

    Wonderful blog, Jack! I will pass it on to Nargis directors to review before our meeting on September 7. You and Sue surely are exuding boundless energy in three countries!

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