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Lacking Clarity in Thailand

Richard Stampfle writes:

This is a true picture of a bus in Thailand used to deliver school children to functions. It is representative of many vehicles in Thailand, it is not an exception. I have hundreds more photos I could have used. While we may recognize that the driver cannot see you will find it strange to learn that most Thais find no problem with this picture. I have asked several what is wrong with the picture; one commented that it should be Liverpool not Manchester United on the Glass. One felt the colors were somewhat gaudy but that is a matter of taste. No one commented on the safety issue. When I showed a similar picture at a meeting of the Thailand Global Road Safety Partnership the only suggestion was that I should do some research on the subject and gather sufficient statistics to get the attention of law makers — if indeed this was actually a problem. (There seemed to be some doubt.)

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 7:30 am and is filed under Risk, Traffic safety, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Lacking Clarity in Thailand”

  1. Tony Toews Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 3:56 pm

    Until I saw the windshield wipers I thought I was looking at the tail end of the bus.

  2. Rich Wilson Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 6:04 pm

    Yah me too. “how well can he see out of the back of the bus anyway.” Oh, that’s the FRONT of the bus? OMG!

  3. chris Hutt Says:
    November 26th, 2009 at 3:16 am

    This illustrates how much perceptions of road safety are determined by cultural expectations rather than objective analysis. In the UK for example there is an obsession with having the correct lights on vehicles, especially bicycles, even on lit urban streets when there doesn’t appear to be any objective evidence to indicate that this is a significant factor in collisions. Conversely it is very difficult to persuade people to accept the demonstrably crucial role of speed in determining collision consequences.

  4. Gerry Gaffney Says:
    November 29th, 2009 at 4:37 am

    Why can the driver not see?

    Of course there is an issue that people outside the bus cannot see the driver, but similar graphics (admittedly generally less visually noisy) are relatively common on trams and buses and are specifically designed to be invisible from within the vehicle. If you sit as a passenger in a vehicle that has such graphics, you may find it disconcerting to have people apparently staring at you, when in fact they’re looking at the images or advertising.

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