HEADLINES [click on headline to view story]:

People deserve a decent sidewalk

Open letter to Tony Blair - money for Thailand

Bad foreign drivers?

England’s Queen?

People deserve a decent sidewalk

Editor,

By law don’t people deserve a decent sidewalk the same as vehicles deserve a decent road? All I see of late is road improvements and construction. Decent, unobstructed sidewalks should be provided everywhere, especially in those areas of South Pattaya and along the main roads and sois where people congregate. Some sois don’t even provide sidewalks, but they allow two-way traffic and speeding motorbikes. It’s a great mystery to me why more people don’t come up minus an arm or a leg. Walking Streets are no substitute for sidewalks and when the automobile and baht bus taxi lobbies get busy even these will probably disappear.

Mr. Purachai should be invited to come down to Pattaya again. This time he should stop by city hall and gather the city fathers and the police and take a stroll along with the pedestrians. Talk about a walk on the wild side! They will soon experience what the peasants and the tourists encounter on a daily basis. They will encounter dogs, vendors, portable kitchens, touts, beggars, and prostitutes. The pedestrians also encounter dangerous sidewalks and motorbike gangs at every corner. Motorbikes are parked on the sidewalks and they speed down one-way streets going the wrong way.

In all this mess there is not a policeman in sight. (They are sitting in their boxes on the corner.) You never see them handing out tickets to the illegals. It’s laissez-faire with a Wild West accent. One suspects some vendors are paying off the police because they occupy more side-walk space than others.

It’s time to consider the pedestrian for a change. Pedestrians do exist. They have the same rights as vehicles. They should be able to stroll along a good sidewalk, and cross the street without being run over. It must be even worse out there around midnight when all the alcoholics take to the streets.

Pedestrian

Open letter to Tony Blair - money for Thailand

Dear Tony Blair

Having read two articles about Britain ‘investing’ in Thailand re: Thaksin Shinawattra’s visit to the U.K on the 11th May, I feel I must make some comments about this initiative. As a Labour supporter and someone that has lived in Thailand for 12 months I think that you should think very carefully about ‘dishing out’ money to a country who is at present involved in a Anti-European witch hunt. The Thai’s at present are trying to blame all their social and economic problems on the European population. Yes, the oldest trick in the book - racism. If you read back through the English speaking Newspaper Pattaya Mail http://www.pattayamail.com you will find many intelligent and well observed letters about the ways in Thai’s are persecuting Europeans.

Can I remind you of the IMF fiasco, where the money was squandered by the elite giving no benefit to the ordinary Thai’s? As for democracy in Thailand, well voters, the majority very poor are bribed at the polling stations by representatives of the candidates - if you had no food to eat what would you do?

Thailand needs to think about globalisation, we all need to work together and help each other. If one European can sell one sarong outside Thailand they should get a handshake from the Thai government - as that is money made for Thailand.

Instead of making it impossible for new business to grow, they are blaming the European’s for all of Thailand’s ills - after all we’ve heard that story before.

If you are to send ‘investment’ to Thailand then I think you need to send a ‘policing’ group of officials who will ensure the money goes to the right and needy places and not into the already bulging pockets of the corrupt politicians. Otherwise you are just giving a corrupt and racist country more money in which to make life more difficult for small overseas investors like myself.

[email protected]

Bad foreign drivers?

Dear Editor,

In your Pattaya Mail issue on May 31st, you published a letter from “Waylander” who “could not help but laugh out loud” when he read about Pattaya authorities announcing they would ‘crack-down’ on foreigners who were ‘bad drivers’. If Waylander was listening closely, he heard the whole foreign community laughing with him!

A Thai woman makes her way on a motorcycle with her daughter and pets on a highway in Chiang Rai province, 680 kilometers (422 miles) north of Bangkok Sunday, June 9. (AP Photo/Apichart Weerawong)

Not only does Thailand have a population of some of the worse drivers in any country I have ever been to, but it also has some of the worse driving conditions, and the least law enforcement of traffic rules. There is no driver’s education in public schools in Thailand as far as I know. So the Thais learn to drive by trial and error. Mostly error. The annual death toll statistics on public holidays will attest to this fact.

The real problem is that few Thais really know the rules of the road. They seem to make them up as they go along. Motorcyclists seem to be excluded from laws completely. They drive as they walk, and consider themselves outside the realm of traffic rules. I understand that most motorcyclists are ‘low income’ earners and therefore come under suffrage of forgiveness. However, it would be a kindness to these citizens if they were to receive more education in driving safety since they are the ones who usually fill up the hospitals and morgues.

I have included a photograph that went ‘round the world’ of what is perceived to be a ‘typical Thai driver’. If Pattaya authorities remove every foreign driver in their city, driving conditions, violations and accidents would not be changed in the slightest. If I know it, they surely do.

C.S.

England’s Queen?

Editor;

I have just read your article concerning the celebrations in Pattaya to mark the “Queen of England’s” birthday. Would you mind telling me why you have chosen to refer to Her Majesty as the “Queen of England” and not as the Queen of the Great Britain? You have insulted the peoples of Wales, Ulster and Scotland with your ignorant statement and I would like to know why.

John Macvie

Dumfries
Scotland

Editor’s reply: Our sincere apologies. That one slipped right past us. Of course she is the Queen of Great Britain. In no way did we mean to insult our friends in Wales, Ulster and Scotland, or anyone else in the Commonwealth.

Letters published in the Mailbag of Pattaya Mail
are also on our website.