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Published on November 19, 2007

Wealthy people can get a party to field them as candidates. If they are ineligible to run in the election, they nominate their inexperienced children. Many candidates can be seen as nominees and may vote as their boss wants them to. Some celebrities not only present themselves as candidates, but also want their children to have a chance to run too.

It is as if it's a game only for the celebrities, the well connected and the rich. An owner of one football club in the Premier League is suspected of using the club for political gain. Parties are like secret clubs and only a handful of people dictate what they will do.

If our country faces an unfavourable situation like an economic crisis or a military conflict with one of our neighbours, what would these MP candidates do? They might sit idly by, not knowing what to do, like in the past. Aside from the fact that an election will be held, many important ingredients of democracy are missing.

How many of these candidates can we trust when their only goal is to get elected, at whatever cost to the country? It looks like the public will have to actively engage in politics to make its voice heard.

Prichar

Bangkok

Drivers' inability to see outside a danger on roads

Re: "Obscured car windows pose public-safety threat", Letters, November 18.

Arild Johnsen asks why Thai authorities allow tinted or "mirrored" car windows, especially for windscreens and the windows in the front doors of cars since it must really be dangerous if one is unable to see the driver. But that is only a minor part of the problem. The major challenge is that the drivers themselves are unable to see out the windows! And, it is not only the tinting that reduces the driver's ability to see outside. Stickers and other opaque materials attached to the glass area also increase the risk. Many motorists in Thailand are driving blind and most people don't understand the enormous risk this creates.

I have read of a case where a young Thai executive who had hung one of those "Baby on board" signs in the rear window of his car ran over his grandfather while he was backing out of the driveway of his home. That cute little sign blocked his vision.

Bus windows are routinely blocked by advertising materials. In fact, whole buses are wrapped in advertising. Personal cars and taxis have advertising and stickers with slogans blocking the driver's vision. I have seen several taxis that had half the front windscreen covered by an advertisement for a local hospital. (This might be convenient knowledge for any cyclist the taxi hits.)

Truck drivers continue to paint the upper and lower portion of their windscreens, side windows and mirrors. Authorities demand that vehicle registration, third-party insurance, first class insurance and other stickers be glued to the windscreen. Private clubs, housing estates, parking lots, hotels, etc have a variety of stickers that are placed all over the windscreen. I have seen buses that carry school children with football advertising totally obscuring the front windscreen and buses that carry factory workers with cartoons painted on the entire front windscreen. Window tinting, which seriously reduces visibility during day and night driving, continues because many foolish drivers think it is fashionable. Little consideration is given to the enormously increased risk to the driver and anything outside his vision.

Arild is quite correct that there is no visual communication between drivers of cars that have their windows obscured and people outside, which increases the risk to both parties. Arild says that he was nearly hit by a car with tinted glass. Not only could he not see the driver, but the car driver probably could not see him since his line of vision may have been blocked by a sticker or that stuff hanging from the rear-view mirror.

The sad thing is that I have personally discussed this problem with many people in the field of road safety in Thailand and they laugh it off by saying "Yes, that's the way we do it in Thailand". Most do not consider obscured driver vision a problem. I remember discussing this with a group of "road-safety experts" several years ago and they just chuckled and said that if I really thought blind driving was a problem I should undertake a study to prove that.

I seriously doubt that anyone in authority will do anything about tinted glass just to be able to see inside a vehicle, when no one seems to be concerned about the driver's ability to see out.

Incidentally, the Land Transport Law does prohibit adding anything to block the driver's vision. The rule is just not followed.

Richard Stampfle

President, Safe Driver Education Company

Bangkok

Climate-change efforts merely treat symptoms

Much of the world's weather is directly a result of the temperature of the surrounding ocean currents. It is far warmer in Scandinavian countries than in many places in North America at similar latitudes. This is the result of the warming effect of the Gulf Stream moving northeast from the Caribbean. Contrary to popular belief nurtured by the media, a rise in the average temperatures in the polar regions will not give rise to increasing temperatures in many geographical locations including northern Europe. The melting ice in the polar regions will result in an increase in icebergs and a cooling of the surrounding oceans, including the Gulf Stream. Many ocean currents will not only be cooler but also change direction significantly as a result of global warming. Anyone who is under the illusion that global warming will warm European winters is dead wrong. What will happen is that the Gulf Stream will cool, average temperatures will fall in Northern Europe and a new ice age could descend on Europe if enough of the polar caps melt.

As time goes on a point will be reached when the polar caps have decreased to a size corresponding with the increase in temperatures. Once that happens, worldwide temperatures will slowly increase until the expanded glaciers (ice age) will begin shrinking and then the climate will return to something similar to that existing today. So what we should be worried about is not increased temperatures but a new ice age that will last for a few thousand years at least.

This media hype about human beings being the primary contributor to global warming through their production of carbon dioxide and other waste gases, and that worldwide action to clean up the environment will be the cure, is simply addressing a symptom while failing to mention and face up to the cause. The cause is that there are simply too many people in the world. It is obvious that the Earth cannot sustain the present rate of increase in population, and as far as I know the only country addressing this worldwide problem is China.

As long as we go on addressing symptoms instead of the cause, the best we can hope for is delaying the inevitable.

William via Internet

Bangkok