OPINION

Speed really kills

Re: "Toll still worst in the world", (Editorial, Jan 8).

Let's get serious about speed limits. A three-lane straight road stretching to the horizon with a speed limit of 50kph. In central Bangkok the limit for cars is 80kph. In London, mostly 32kph.

From Sattahip to Pattaya there are 30km without a single permanent sign with a numerical limit, only the absurd "City Limit Reduce Speed". Where there are signs in this area they are often: a joke (10kph), contradictory (120kph on one side of the road and 90kph on the other), or otherwise confusing.

The overhead green or blue direction signs are generally excellent. Why not include speed limits on these signs? Erect gantries with overhead speed signs?

Placing tents with bored occupants throughout the country during the "Seven Deadly Days" will not make for safer driving. It takes at least a generation to change attitudes to good driving with a constantly changing PR campaign on television, in the press and at roadside hoardings, year round, with a punching message: "Keep death off the roads for a safer Thailand" or maybe "Thai lives matter. Keep death off the road".

Re: "Toll still worst in the world", (Editorial, Jan 8).

That's no surprise, Thailand is the World No.1 in road accidents and deaths among civilised countries -- and by a lot. According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, a civilised society or country has a well-developed system of government, culture, and way of life and treats the people who live there fairly. A fair justice system is a fundamental part of a civilised society.

Re: "Thailand through the Looking Glass", (Sunday Post, Jan 1).

Thanks to Roger Crutchley for resurrecting (Mrs) Edith Clampton and Khun Hazel and their potential activities in 2018. Edith has remained mysteriously silent for a long time and must be getting on a bit now as many current readers will be unacquainted with her memsahib approach to life in Thailand and browbeating the local populace in the 1990s.

I remember the furore that erupted in PostBag when she castigated an unfortunate taxi driver and his "beady eyes" who objected to her unorthodox use of the Comfort 100 in the back seat of his vehicle during a traffic jam (later described by an outraged American reader as an acceptable single woman's appliance, but for private use). It seems there was a misunderstanding between these two ladies about the nature of the device. Either way, the poor taxi driver must have been goggling.

It was mooted that her withering influence will turn its attention to Australia later in the year, which is entirely possible as she is likely a close acquaintance of Dame Edna Everage.

Moreover, I suspect the equally enigmatic and beleaguered Mr Clampton fled there years ago incognito and resumed life happily until Edith and Khun Hazel became internet-literate and the hunt began. I look forward to further developments.

I see the Bangkok Post's front page continues the "Poll Countdown" to the general election so it can supposedly "help hold" the prime minister to his word. It seems you consider the very process of holding elections so important that you need to do this. Why the emphasis on this? If it's just for the sake of being able to have a "democratically" elected government rather than a government that works reasonably well, I am not looking forward to this countdown reaching zero at all.

The longer the current government stays in power before any election, the more chance the country has to develop so as to avoid a repetition of the conflicts of the absolute shambles of governments that preceded the coup, and in being able to establish a far more mature attitude to democracy for it to stand any chance of working in the future.

History speaks for itself in Thailand.

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