I worked in Manchester, in St Anne's Square. I'm no Scrooge, but hated Christmas shopping, not because of the money spent but because of the crowds. One Christmas Eve, panicking a bit as I had yet to buy the Christmas cards (I'm kidding) I was walking along fast, trying to go to Debenhams, but kept having to dodge the eejit pedestrians - particularly the ones with prams and pushchairs - who would be walking in the same direction as me before stopping dead in their tracks to chat to whoever was walking with them.
After many all too close encounters with their fat arses it was a life-changing moment when it dawned on me that these nutters probably drove cars in the same way that they walked...
How can it be that they all now live in here Thailand???
I doubt that there has been a single car journey that I've made in the last 4 years here when some 1/2 a brain-cell hasn't tried the same manoeuvre that Nomad described. I usually stop to avoid the hassle and hypertension, letting the depleted brain-cell through, but an hour or so ago, near the old Office restaurant, another brain-dead overtook me as I waited and he met his counterpart head-on. Neither of them had the sense to make way for the other, so we all sat there for several minutes until the original idiot reversed (badly, because they can't) letting the other through. However, they didn't open their windows to curse each other, nor did they use their horns. The advent of road-rage in the UK would be less-likely to produce the same outcome.
I recognised a very mild mannered friend's car ahead of me whilst driving towards Manchester. Being a friendly sort, I caught up with him and pipped my horn gently in greeting as we approached some traffic lights - just as they were changing to green. I had never heard him curse in several years of friendship, and was amazed as he gesticulated wildly with his middle finger in his mirror. A few days later, when I next saw him, he completely denied his action, admitting that he hadn't recognised me or my car...
Once, in Argentina, I was behind another driver approaching a roundabout when he slammed into the back of the car in front of him. Knowing that many kept guns in their cars, I feared the worst! Both drivers leapt out - and smiled at each other before shaking hands!
Drive in the UK countryside or in a rural village there, and there's a good chance that the person in front of you will take an age to turn left or right at the next T junction, waiting for a big gap in the traffic before moving. The same person, driving in London or another major city, would - if he hesitated for a split second at a junction or a roundabout - be deafened and blinded by horns and flashing headlights.
It's similar here in Surin too - the crawl away from changed traffic lights can mean that only a very few vehicles go through before they turn back again to red. That snail-like progress might be as a result of their knowing that other vehicles will still be moving across the junction long after their own green light had changed to red. In contrast, driving in Bangkok requires that you be quick and decisive at junctions - or be swamped by vehicles passing from all directions!
I'm not sure that I have seen ANY courteous Thai drivers here. Nervous ones, hesitant ones, dumb ones: yes. There are plenty of those. Despite seeing many video clips of Thai road rage incidents, I've never seen it happen in person - or to anyone else. From that point of view, maybe things aren't quite so bad as in Britain.
