Pattaya police have recently arrested around 1800 people for driving under the influence. The vast majority Thai but a significant number of "Falangs". The passport is confiscated.
As usual, the detainees are housed in the notorious Thai cells, which are much too small, with no toilets, no water and no food. The next day you will be placed in a cell before the court and then wait for hours for the final fine of 60 to 100 euros.
From now on, these dangerous drunk drivers will have to pick up their passports at the Immigration Service and will then be arrested again to be deported! You read it right. This procedure is still ongoing. But I can already tell you that there are people who blew 0,7 promille (legally allowed is 0,5) and that they are being deported. They are expelled from the country for a certain period of time. How long is not clear at the moment.
Be warned!
Anonymous
Editor's note: This is a reader submission from an anonymous person. So we cannot verify whether what is stated above is actually true, but maybe our readers can confirm or deny this message? Do you know what it is or have you experienced the same in Pattaya please respond.
Dear readers,
I already received this news a few days ago and it was also from an “unknown” contributor. Can't find any source to support it. So I have serious doubts about the authenticity of this message.
Driving a car or motorcycle under the influence cannot be justified or justified. I personally think that sanctions are not more than normal. You will also be penalized for it in the home country. But “deportation”, better if the word “expulsion” had been chosen, I think is over the line. I do not believe that a country like Thailand would take such a measure.
Lung addie
what is in the message is true
thai drink driving
It's been a long time, but I did read a warning from one on the Pattaya Daily News
Englishman about the risk you run as a foreigner in Thailand to be arrested with too much drink
behind the wheel. The story is partially true.
There is a “toilet room” in the cells. You only stand there with your feet in the urine.
There is no writing about handing in a passport or deportation.
Has nothing to do with the story. I sometimes drink 3 pipes of beer (no Chang) in a period of about 2 hours. Am I already at that 0,5 pro? Now start squeezing him.
Cor van Kampen.
With 3 pipes in 2 hours you will be slightly above it but less than 0,6
You are a guest here and you have to abide by certain rules. This applies to alcohol behind the wheel, walking around in your bare skin on the street and, for example, driving without a helmet. That Thailand apply their own rules is normal, I think. Apparently it's not going well. Many tourists leave decency, if at all available, at home? I think a deportation is an effective way to avoid this kind of incorrigible.
As long as you continue to act normally, you will not be bothered by these measures.
Yes, here in pattaya there is a huge check going on for alcohol, not wearing a helmet, etc… but mostly for alcohol. This happens at any time of the day and also at night full jobs are closed for checks with a lot of policemen, 20 to 30 men, even at 3 or 5 am and apparently more on weekends. I don't drink anymore. This happens because the police have lost a lot of their teemoney as the military are now in power and they can earn it back that way. Many are now leaving for Cambodia and ignoring Thailand . Some police are honest and not corrupt. Have already been arrested 4 times but had not drunk: So no problem, but 1 police was very friendly and she: if you are drunk, your girlfriend has to drive and we were allowed to continue. I do speak fluent Thai = also an advantage.
Received the same email last week, didn't publicize it because I didn't read any confirmation about this 'deportation'. So I checked with some compatriots on the spot, they fell out of the blue…
I really therefore do not believe this story, but what is not yet may come… in Thailand, one never knows.
Greetings
As long as such a claim or story is not based on facts and the sender is anonymous, I wonder why it is posted at all? It is still unnecessarily causing unrest, because not everyone will then come to the conclusion that it is not true.
You can't drink anything all year round and then just on that one evening you would be deported because you had one glass too many. It seems highly exaggerated to me.
If that story were true, why must the person writing it keep themselves anonymous? What is he afraid of?
This is actually a story that is not necessary to tell, as long as it is not based on truth and facts.
Cell is correct
Fine is correct
Not deportation
Succes
Neither in the newspapers nor on TV do I have any of this
read or seen reports.
In the past someone was put in prison and
released the next day.
There are more checks, sometimes I have to 1 to 2 x a week
show my driver's license, but also the Thais.
Sincerely,
Lodewijk
Anonymous so better not post very vague and unclear in this case.
Yes, you will be placed in the cell, not nice, but the toilet is there; hole in the ground behind wall 🙁
Fine can be up to 500/600 euros.
3 bottle of sing light is already too much so better nothing, or moterbike taxi.
Once the drink is in the man wisdom in the…. true for me too and lucky!!
However expulsion; never heard of it and not likely, but yes maybe overstay of ten months
can just like that.
No lawyer to be sure, but better not drink behind the wheel!
Does a ???? all and waiting for contribution from someone who was screwed himself; I know Dr. 1 with a different story, but again TIT rules change quickly.
Rightly so! You should behave normally in someone else's country… just like in the Netherlands. Drunk behind the wheel? Idiots .... and then later kill someone and cry if you have to go to jail there.
I have reason to doubt the complete correctness of this message.
I can personally testify that traffic is strictly controlled in Pattaya, in any case stricter than in many other places in Thailand.
That the approach is so strict that foreigners are put in a cell for a night without food and drink and without a toilet, and then also deported, does not really seem the truth in 2015 to me.
If the traffic policy were that strict, I think Thailand would not be one of the countries with the most road deaths in the world.
Have recently experienced 3 cases where one has been sentenced to various fines, and one even with a fine of 30.000 baht, 100 hours of community service at Father Ray orphanage, and a 1 month suspended prison sentence with 2 years probation. With the restriction that he is not allowed to consume alcohol for 2 years, and has to go to Chonburi every 3 months to have this checked. If he does so, his month in prison will start, with the risk of deportation afterwards or a blacklist for 99 years. Our compatriot had 3 whiskeys as he told me and the breathalyzer showed 0,87 promille. However, the PV stated 1.87 promille. It is serious now with this government, because more than 70% of the accidents happen with too much alcohol, after which people often quickly run off. Another acquaintance sat with 3 beers just above the limit of 0,5 promile, and had to stay in a packed police cell, and waited a whole day for the fast court, where he was sentenced to a 3000 baht fine and 6 months disqualification. Glass on let you drive, and never run off after an accident because this carries heavy prison sentences. Know an Englishman who has been given 5 years for this. In the event of an accident, leave your vehicle with the flashing lights on and call the police or the emergency number. 191 or 1155 tourist police.
Perhaps the anonymous posting was just posted as if there would be a response with well-founded confirmation or denial. Seems like a hoax to me.
Furthermore, you don't drive drunk, you don't risk anything, whatever it is.
Would welcome it wholeheartedly, although being housed in such a stuffy Thai cell should last much longer, as well as the fine that can be considerably higher!
Entered into a discussion with several compatriots that even became aggressive because what are you interfering with, otherwise go back to that frog country with all its rules.
Moreover, it can still be bought off when arrested by a 'man in brown' for 2 bills of 100 baht and with the addition of the meaningless argument that the Thai themselves are also just as easy to ride a moped with a baby/child, for example, so true do you worry about, I was told tough.
Well, just hope that they themselves cause a unilateral accident so that others will not be (seriously) injured or even worse fatally involved.
I have heard from 2 events that a Thai pays 7,000 baht and a farang 30,000 baht and a night in a cell when driving under the influence > 0,5 promille
I do expect if an aggressive attitude is adopted by the farang they are considering deporting the person, but I have never heard anyone talk about that,
I don't take the risk myself and take a double motorbike taxi for 120 baht if I've been drinking.
One brings me and my scooter home and the other takes his colleague back.
This way you can go out quite a few times before you exceed 30.000. (250 times)
Drunk driving is dangerous even in Thailand.
Doesn't just happen in Pattaya. In Chiang Mai they are also checking every day. Every day a different place. It would be about time. More than 300 road deaths last week. And the falangs drive as if they were the king of the road are.I say well done and keep it up.
It is finally time for something to change here in Thailand .
And that also applies to the farangs , who think they are above everything .
Jan Beute.
The message was posted on visa.com some time ago. I would like confirmation. For now I hardly drink when I go out or take a taxi.
All this, if true, has nothing to do with road safety, I think, but rather with a quick way for the police to make money. Drunk driving resulting in serious traffic accidents happens on roads like Sukhumvit and not on the 2nd rd. or Thapraya rd. on the way to your apartment in a soi or something.
Traffic accidents are mainly caused by people who are drunk behind the wheel, but not by people who have 0,6 pro mille of alcohol in their blood from three or four beers.
Of course there are moral knights who condemn everything in advance. In the Netherlands you will receive a fine with a promillage between 0,5 and 0,81 and only above that you will be disqualified from driving. Thailand would then be stricter than the Netherlands. That is somewhat hypocritical in a country with approximately 25.000 road deaths in the top three of the world. I think the number of those caused by farangs, drunk or not, is disproportionately low.
Here in Khon Kaen there are also a lot of checks, but especially before midnight. You hardly see them after midnight.
Incidentally, the fines for the Thai are also not tender. A Thai gets an official note if they are caught with alcohol, and then the fine is pretty low. But most Thais are obviously not waiting for such a note, and then it is often arranged privately, for something like 15.000-20.000 baht.
Had to blow once in Khon Kaen, after having had 1 beer at a dinner, but nothing wrong. They stop you, then they put some kind of sniffer in the car, if it picks up any alcohol in your breath you are pulled over for a breathalyzer test. If that breathalyzer is positive, then you're there. In my case it was just negative and have a nice day sir.
I don't know if this is wrong, but what I do know is:
1. Driving under the influence in Thailand – just like in the Netherlands – is a crime and not an offence. So you basically fall under criminal law;
2. Foreigners with a criminal record have a problem here. I don't think it will go that fast with deportation, but extending your visa will be in danger if the rules are really applied. To be allowed to work here as a teacher, I had to submit a certificate of good conduct from the Dutch authorities. Contact with the police in the Netherlands here means that you are not allowed to work.
3. A warned man counts for two.
“DEPORTATION” “a totally fabricated story!! Last week my friend was stopped by the police for alcohol control, was fed up with the car. Fine paid at the table and his wife came to pick him up .. End of story .
Here in Loei (NO) they are also checking and sometimes in the strangest places and times, so they do that well. I do it very simple, when I go by car or motorbike I don't drink anything, absolutely nothing. If I wanted to then I can do it easily because when they see me it is always "spawn" or get out. The reason for this is because they see that you are farang and no one here speaks English, or they do not enter into that confrontation. Sometimes nice and easy, no nagging.