Outraged passenger Pawini Poomipongs, professor of Tourism Business Administration, made the official complaint to the Transport Company Ltd. (generally known by their Thai initials ‘BorKorSor’) on Sunday (July 22).
Mrs Panwini said that her experience of the long-distance, air-conditioned buses that run between Phuket and Bangkok was that they typically showed extremely violent movies.
“When I was on the bus I felt the film’s content was inappropriate for children and teenagers,” she said.
“People of all ages, gender and occupation use that bus. Consideration must be shown as to whether the content of the films and programmes are appropriate for general audiences.”
Mrs Panwini’s opinion is that it should not be “immoral, erotic or tending to incite violence in society.”
Kriengkrai Pengbangkae, a steward for a bus company, said that whether videos are played during a trip is largely a matter for the staff to decide.
“Our DVD player has been broken for more than a month,” he explained, “and I haven't been free to take it for repair, so we are not showing movies as usually we do.
“But for myself, I like Hollywood action and war movies, so I shell out my own money to buy such films for use in the bus. The company doesn't pay for it at all.
“We have also some old Thai movies and concert videos.”
Kriengkrai said that typically only one film is shown per journey: “I don't see that it hurts anybody. Most passengers like that we show movies.”
Officials at the new bus station on Thepkrassattri Rd released a comment that the station director would probably issue an order that the associated companies operating the 110 trips daily from the facility “proceed according to the rules.”
Said rules were not reported.