Oooops! That was close!

[Jambo]

The following happened recently at the permanent Police/Army checkpoint which is about 10 minutes away from Sai's family home in Mae Sot. We were stopped at it yesterday on our return from Bangsaray/Pattaya and the officer on duty enjoyed using a bit of English and basically took the piss out at my feeble use of Thai. I wonder if he featured in this incident. 🤣

The lorry should have been slowing down for the checkpoint and had to take violent evasive action to avoid taking out the guy on the motorbike.

 

Watch out for the dog running for his life!

[bob lt]

The guy on the motorbike should buy a lottery ticket immediately 

[john luke]

I don't know what the licencing system is in Thailand for driving Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGV) but over in the UK, whilst there are exceptions I always found that most HGV drivers were very skilled and drove in a professional manner.  Of course the press only report incidents where there have been fatalities or extensive damage.

[tko]

36 minutes ago, bob lt said:

The guy on the motorbike should buy a lottery ticket immediately 

I'd think the opposite.  He just spent all his luck for at least the next 10 years.😓

[Jambo]

15 hours ago, john luke said:

I don't know what the licencing system is in Thailand for driving Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGV) but over in the UK, whilst there are exceptions I always found that most HGV drivers were very skilled and drove in a professional manner.  Of course the press only report incidents where there have been fatalities or extensive damage.

I drive quit high mileage in Thailand in long distances and generally I find the HGV drivers here mostly to be much better than the general public. I recall making that very comment to Sai as we drove back to Mae Sot earlier this week when one signalled and moved as far as he could to the left to allow me to pass in a long road works section.

We did however see one lorry half buried into the central reservation and I can only guess the driver fell asleep. This is the most common cause of lorry accidents "Up North."

Where this particular lorry had his incident is at the far end of an 80km stretch of dual carriageway which goes up and down like the proverbial Swiss Alps. It has crawler lanes and two "escape" cut/offs and countless signs for lorries to use low gears when going downhill. It is very heavy on brakes and you can often smell the overheated brake linings. They took about 4 years to turn this road from the most dangerous road in Thailand into the fastest, most dangerous, dual carriageway in Thailand. At least now all vehicles are going in the same direction when going round the blind bends.

[code_slayer_bkk]

I don't know .. just all of the trucks on the tollway getting to the South out of BKK towards Rama II on the way to Ratchaburi ( before Cha Am and Hua Hin ) is a total mess .. the toll booth just before Samut Sakhon .. jeez 

You get these big semis all three lanes ( including the passing lanes ) ...

At least the highways are pretty good ...