As Pattaya bursts at the seams with too much traffic on insufficient roads, the city’s traffic police division seems to have reduced its profile. These are the guys with the word “Traffic” prominently displayed on their backs. It’s true that they share duties with the main police force, but the citizenry is aghast that cars, baht buses and motorbikes seem increasingly to be left to their own devices.
The police booths to control traffic lights sequences at major intersections (with the exception of the one at the junction of Second and Central Roads) seem to be unstaffed. Drivers parking on red-line prohibited areas seem to be almost-invariably undisturbed, although there is still an occasional sweep of Beach Road with fine tickets posted on windscreens. Double parking without permission is now a common feature on the incredibly busy Thepprasit Road, helping to magnify the chaos. And so on.
In preparation for the festive season, police lt. colonel Phanupong Nimsuwan, head of the local traffic division, said there were four priorities: reviewing road signs, alcohol tests, no parking crackdown and illegal U-turns. He also explained that 30,000 extra parking slots had been established city-wide, although without clarifying detail. But what remains unclear is the number of officers actually out there on the roads to enforce traffic laws.
Feedback from individual police officers suggests several explanations for the absences. Some say there’s a concentration on night patrols and breath tests or maybe some officers have been redirected in duty location. A more profound view is that Pattaya’s traffic woes are so awesome that a hands-off approach may be the best answer as the festive season approaches. Some say that expanded ring roads around Pattaya have actually made the congestion worse in the city itself.
The reality is that too many vehicles are attempting to use the available road space. As the saying goes, “You are not stuck in traffic, you are the traffic.” The only longterm answer can be notions such as cable cars or mini-railways or a vastly-improved public transport system linked to disincentives to travel in the city center such as fines or bans on private cars. But there is no political benefit to launch projects that will take decades, cost billions and make people furious at further environmental chaos. In the meantime, more police presence on the roads would be appreciated.
