OPINION

Bring your own bags

Brian Shepard in his Oct 8 letter wonders why convenience stores are allowed to provide plastic bags for their customers; because retailers provide bags for containing their goods, Thailand is living in a world of trash and other waste.

He suggests plastic bags be banned. He doesn't mention any alternatives to plastic bags and puts the blame for pollution on the vendor rather than the customer. Stores have to pay for the bags and provide them because a competitive market place demands their use. If Brian would like to see an immediate improvement he should bring his own bag (or backpack) and have the goods placed there instead of a plastic bag.

This, however, would require individual responsibility, which is quite a long shot, as options go. Blaming suppliers for problems relieves us of personal responsibility.

In his Oct 10 letter, "Rules and penalties", RH Suga makes valid points: it is necessary for authorities to take a harder line with traffic offenders.

However, driver education should be a priority. All people who apply for a licence should be required to go through a certified driving school prior to taking their driving test. The schooling should be in both theory (rules and regulations) and practice. They should drive in traffic and pull-off manoeuvres that includes reverse parking, hill starts, entering and exiting road junctions, choosing the correct lane and indicating. From what I understand, driving licence applicants only have to answer some questions and then have a drive around bollards in a car park with no other traffic. If successful then they receive a licence that entitles them to drive in traffic!

This is something that the general could address immediately. He could initiate education for driving instructors and then make sure that everyone who applies for a license has been to an authorised driving school. This creates employment and (hopefully) puts better drivers on the road.

Re: "Three escape death in pick-up train crash", (Online, Oct 9).

Deliberately trying to cross a rail crossing when the barriers are down, the lights flashing, and a train in full view approaching, defies imagination. Should this driver have been killed I would not have shed a tear. It is fortunate that the two other people in the vehicle were only slightly injured.

SRT collisions with vehicles at guarded and unguarded crossings seem to be a regular event these days. I do not blame the SRT one bit. A big problem is the ease with which people can obtain a driver's licence, with absolutely no driver education.

Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon claimed that, "the food on the plane was ordinary Thai food" in referring to the meals provided during the chartered flight for defence officials travelling to Hawaii.

Considering two meals each for the 38 travellers during the roughly 12-hour flight, the 600,000-baht food bill for the flight comes in at substantially more than 7,500 baht per meal.

I wonder what kind of "ordinary" Thai meals defence officials are used to eating that cost 7,500 baht each?

THAI cabin staff: "General, how would you like your eggs in the morning?"

Thai general: " Make them Eggs Benedict with a generous sprinkling of Beluga caviar, accompanied by a roulade of smoked salmon -- Scottish of course -- and a flute of Champagne on the side. And stewardess…"

THAI cabin staff: "Yes sir…"

Thai general: "Don't forget my noodles!"

I'm wondering why the Bangkok Post has stopped publishing the stock market results in the daily and weekend section of the business pages.