Thai Days: the beginners guide to bribing Bangkok traffic cops

The only honest traffic cop in Bangkok is made of plastic. Or so the saying goes.

BLOG ED NOTE: The authorities have installed a large number of fake, life sized police patrol men at busy intersections and accident black spots to deter would-be traffic offenders. I remember seeing similarly unconvincing cops in Japan. They didn’t work there. And they don’t work here. Anybody short sighted enough not to spot them as total dummies isn’t on the road – he or she’s still at home looking for the car keys.  Or the car.

But these plasti-cops do at least have one advantage over their flesh and blood colleagues. They may be extremely shiny and may have spray paint on their faces – but they don’t break the law.

Fairly recently,  Rodel, a good friend of mine, gave me a lift and made two serious mistakes. The first was failing to see an invisible sign prohibiting U-turns. I call that criminally negligent!

I mean really, Rodel!

Just because something doesn’t visually exist doesn’t mean you can break the law by looking straight through it!  

Rodel’s second blunder was taking his car out just before lunch;  a time when the police, having spent their previous day’s earnings on bar girls,  now have their minds on noodle money.Their wives have refused to cook them breakfast and (if they’ve been smoking the ‘sticky stuff’) they’ve got the munchies.

We were pulled over very promptly by a tiny, wasp-waisted cop wearing a very large motorbike helmet, reflective shades and a face mask (ostensibly for purposes of preventing pollution related lung injury). Yeah, right!

“Super!” thought I, “We are about to be busted for reasons unknown by a very camp edition of the Invisible Man!”

I hadn’t witnessed bribery and corruption first-hand in Thailand before. Indeed I’d blathered away to Mary, a guest from Namibia, just the previous evening, about how honest Thai people were.

Rather unfortunately, Mary was also in the car. 

Rodel knew the ‘one minute rent-a-cop’ routine; there was even some falsely good humoured haggling, and after the fun was over the police ‘road block’ mounted his bike and shot off at a speed clearly exceeding legal limits. A good bust! He now had a 100 Baht noodle voucher in his wallet. Hope he got food poisoning!

Rodel took the incident in his stride. He gave a bit of advice of the ‘don’t argue or get angry’ variety. Mary, who has spent decades in Africa, wasn’t traumatized. She’s seen a great deal worse. So that was OK.

I pretty much forgot about the incident. I don’t drive in Bangkok. The taxis are cheap and know where they’re going. It might not always be exactly where you want them to go. But taxis are 99% great! They spare you the misery of finding parking space and when you’ve finished doing whatever you are doing you can hail a new one in less than a minute in my experience.

HUGH PAXTON BLOG BANGKOK TAXI TRAVEL TIP:  It sometimes happens that a taxi stops for you, you tell him your destination, and he becomes agitated and says ‘no’ or wags his head in an alarmingly deranged fashion. This isn’t anything personal. He just doesn’t need your ride. Your destination may be in the wrong direction for him. He may be about to finish his shift or he’s coming down after a 48 hour shift fuelled by crystal meth, or is worried about getting lost because you can’t pronounce it correctly. Don’t feel downcast. You’ll get another. Check he sets his meter. If he won’t, get out. Or better still conduct your negotiations through an opened front passenger seat door. That saves you the bother of getting in before you get out. 

 BLOG EDNOTE: Perhaps Hugh Paxton’s blog can stop giving, no doubt, helpful advice on taxi procedure and get back to bribing cops?

HUGH PAXTON: Yes, OK. A fair point. I’ll do a proper taxi post that will tell you all, in the near future. Back to police corruption!  Advice1

1. Take a taxi rather than self drive in Bangkok. The drivers know the police situation. 

2. If you are pulled over don’t start scrabbling in your pockets and thrusting coins at the officer.  Coins are insulting. They also fall all over the place and somebody’s got to pick them up making every passing car slow to watch the spectacle. This is a paper money transaction.

3. He won’t ask you for a bribe because that would be illegal. So don’t  verbally suggest it. Suggesting it could get you into subverting the cause of justice territory. In the extremely unlikely event that he is honest he might arrest you. I use the words extremely and unlikely because both apply. And only when they are co-joined.  

4. Call the puss bag ‘sir’ and look daunted, apologetic and humble.

5. Try and guage the officer’s mood. Does he look very hungry? Is he waving his driving tickets in a part of the road that might get him killed by speeding drivers or scooter riders skimming past mere inches from his spine? If so do not immediately hand over anything. With a bit of luck a car driven by the spaced out daughter of a Red Shirt politician will knock him out of his boots and send him 300 meters away from you.     

6. Does he want another 100 Baht? If he does, and you can’t afford it, show him an empty wallet, grovel a bit. 

7. The bribe hand over. It needs to be disguised. You curl your 100 baht note into a fist, he gives you his fist and cunningly extricates the note. Passersby are assumed to be watching a friendly cop/public exchange of knuckle touching.

Executive Summary: Use your instincts. But follow my instructions. Bear in mind that if one of these germs books you for your traffic offence his move will also involve one shit load of paperwork for your arresting officer. And if it’s rush hour time it will take him hours to get anything done. And his fellow traffic cops will regard him as a dangerous subversive.           

Hugh Paxton’s Blog regards corruption and bribery as fundamental maggots in any system. My blog also suggests that some of Pornchai Sereemongkonpol’s suggestions in Friday’s Guru magazine’s “Skills at the City” feature should not be attempted by the beginner.

1: Caught using a cell phone? Claim your Mummy’s dying and this could be the last chance to talk.

2: No seat belt? (this one only applies to women). Claim recent breast augmentation may be impaired by seat belt pressure and provoke disfigurement. 

Pornchai Sereemongkonpol concludes his various suggestions with the words ” Although it’s not the most ethical skill, you save time and trouble in the end.”

Judge for yourself! And take a taxi!

Cheers!

Hugh

Tags: bribery, fake policemen, Thai bribery, Thai Days, thai traffic cops, thai travel advice, traffic offences