Speaking to The Phuket News yesterday (Mar 22) Patong Police Chief Col Anotai Jindamanee revealed his further plans to improve communication with local community via LINE and promote road safety.
“Following a meeting at Patong Police Station on March 7, local residents created a LINE group to share with us information about disruptive behaviour on the roads, namely tourists riding motorbikes fast and making loud noises. There are police officers in the group to receive complaints from local residents and give them advice about taking photos or videos of violations. There are not many complaints in the group right now and we keep educating the participants about what photos and videos can or cannot be used as evidence,” Col Anotai said.
The next step to promote road safety will be setting up a special traffic police team to patrol Patong and “check if there are people driving too fast or driving recklessly and disturbing local residents”.
“I expect this special police team to be created by the end of March,” Col Anotai said.
Also Patong Police are planning to visit all vehicle rental shops in the area to remind operators that they should check if their foreign clients have appropriate driving licenses before renting bikes.
“Patong Police will meet all the owners of motorcycle rentals in this area, we will visit every shop to gather full information about the number of such businesses and other details. During these visits we will also remind operator that they must check if their foreign clients have driving licenses and must tell them about traffic regulations in Thailand. We will keep doing it until every rental shop operator in Patong knows the rules,” Col Anotai said.
“Having explained the rules to everybody in this business, we will create a LINE group for vehicle rental operators so when a foreigner on a rented bike violates traffic rules a picture of the violation will be posted in the group and the owner of the rental shop will be summoned to Patong Police Station,” Col Anotai explained.
Patong Police Chief didn't elaborate on the possible consequences for rental shop operators whose foreign clients break traffic rules.
Pascale | 03 April 2019 - 22:17:41