Editor;
I really, really do not believe the city government, police, mayor’s office, etc., realize how much more life/limb threatening Pattaya’s streets have become since the (crosswalk) lights were installed. Twice, in the past two days, I narrowly escaped injury, or worse, by believing cars/bikes would actually stop for the red signal. It is very difficult to cross, swiftly, and watch 6 lanes of oncoming traffic. After the number 2 “miss”, I remained at the site, on 2nd Rd., just South of Central Plaza to observe.
Several times pedestrians duplicated my crossing efforts and suffered the same fate. Soon, if not already, someone will die and then meetings, too late as usual, will be held to work out solutions. Something must be done now and it is time for the Pattaya mayor, whose “pet project” the lights were, to step in and fix it or take the lights down. The obvious solution is the same for all violators of any law: increase, with proper notification, the punishment to levels that, financially/criminally, will force compliance. Raise violation #1 to 500B and the 2nd to 1000. The 3rd should include license suspension, vehicle impounding and, potentially, jail time.
How is this done – often we see notices of police raids involving, literally, hundreds of officers so the manpower is available. I saw a figure of 42 traffic controls with some 17 out of the city proper leaving 25 on Beach, 2nd, and 3rd roads. Assign an officer to each, full time, at least until the problem eases. There was a police blockade only 50 meters north of the light I observed but the officers paid no attention to light violators, just helmets. Police must focus on this potentially deadly violation.
Yes, I am aware that the mayor’s office and the police dept. are separate but someone in authority should be sent a translated copy of this message to take immediate action. If they can, and do, get together for “bed races”, hotel openings, plaza fashion shows, they sure as hell can do so for a problem that won’t “go away” by itself!
Don Aleman
