Many Americans and Europeans choose to spend their retirements in Thailand. Thais are generally very nice to foreigners, and we sometimes tend to honour them more than fellow Thais. The majority of foreigners who come to Thailand are good people and don’t cause problems. But some capitalise on our generosity and use Thailand as a hiding place to get away from crimes they have committed back home. Some even go further and start committing new crimes in this country.

Today there are certain foreigners who rely on being “farang”, and trick Thai women from the provinces into marrying them. In return they give the women a small amount of money every month in exchange for being able to live in the Kingdom permanently. In the process they also get a partner in bed.

Some of these farangs take advantage of legal loopholes by setting up independent organisations and find ways to publicise themselves. They go to the provinces, donated a petty sum to schools, or take photos at restaurants and small factories in the villages, all so they can send the pictures abroad and claim they are doing charity work. They are angling for support money from international organisations. They lie to people and say that they work for an NGO, even though their work does not benefit the public and is merely a commercial enterprise.

These foreigners, who generally are not well off, usually live in small provinces, like in the Northeast. Sometimes these farangs even trick fellow farangs. As far as I know, the Thai authorities are carefully watching these people and waiting to get their hands on evidence to go after them. Without evidence the police could be accused of violating the bad farangs’ rights.

But today, I have some questions from a good farang concerning the use of indicator lights in Thailand.

When I drive through junctions I can’t help noticing that a large number of Thai drivers like to turn on the headlights while some also turn on the hazard lights. What do these signals mean? Back home when we blink the headlights it means that we are giving way to the car waiting at the junction to proceed first.

Flashing the headlights (usually the high beam) while crossing junctions or passing the top of the soi with cars waiting to come out has a different meaning in Thailand.

In other countries, like in the US or Europe, if the car on the main road does this, it means that the drivers wants the other car to go ahead like you said. But in Thailand, this means that the car on the main road is saying: “Don’t come out – I am passing at high speed or without slowing down.”

The use of emergency (hazard) lights while the car is in motion is actually illegal in Thailand, but a large number of motorists do not know this. They think that turning on the hazard lights would tell others that they are “proceeding straight through the junction so other vehicles should not come in their way”.

Actually, according to Thai traffic laws, the hazard lights can only be switched on when the vehicle is stationary.

When I see trucks passing each other they would flash the headlights to each other – what does this mean?

This is just their way of saying “hello”, or sometimes one truck is warning the other truck about a police speed trap and checkpoint up front. This is used in many countries. In some countries the trucks flash the lights to let a passing truck know it is safe to merge back into the lane.

I used to drive at night from Tak to Lampang and there were lots of trucks flashing green lights to oncoming trucks. What does this mean?

Trucks, including buses, in Thailand are required to be fitted with coloured lights on the roof (the colour depends on the type of vehicle). If you see them flashing these lights to each other, they are communicating that there could be obstacles up ahead such as an accident, road damage, flooding or a checkpoint.

I believe this type of traffic communication is widely used around the world, although the meaning could vary from country to country.

So you must be very careful and make sure you understand these local signals in order to ensure safety.

E-mail your motoring questions to Pattandesh@nationgroup.com