PATTAYA, Thailand – For many German long-term visitors, the daily sight of road accidents in Pattaya is less a case of bad luck than of bad enforcement.
“There are plenty of laws in Thailand. The problem is they’re not applied,” one German resident told Pattaya Blatt in response to recent news about the city launching a crackdown on traffic violations and helmet safety laws. He described a scene familiar to anyone who has spent time on Pattaya’s streets: four boys, none older than nine, wobbling down the road on a single motorbike, not a helmet in sight. “And the policeman nearby? He wasn’t stopping them. He was waiting for a foreigner he could fine.”
The frustration is not just about inconvenience — it’s about safety. Pattaya’s accident rate remains stubbornly high despite campaigns and posters urging helmets and seatbelts. Tourists might shrug and chalk it up to local culture, but for long-term residents who drive these roads every day, it feels like a city unwilling to take responsibility for its own dangers.
Germany has some of the strictest road safety standards in the world, and many of its nationals living here can’t help but notice the gap. “You don’t need new regulations,” said another. “You need to enforce the ones you already have. Otherwise, the accidents will never stop.”
Behind the irritation is also a sense of unfairness. Foreigners are often singled out for traffic checks, while locals ignore even the most basic rules. “You feel like an ATM, not a road user,” said one Pattaya driver.
As Pattaya gears itself up as a “world-class tourism city,” the question remains whether officials will continue to treat road safety as a photo-op, or finally as a public duty. Until then, German residents say, the crash reports will keep filling the local news — and the police will keep looking the other way.
