Richard Stampfle's recent letter described a terrible Songkran road accident in Nong Khai, where revellers threw a bucket of water onto a motorcycle carrying a family of four, including an infant, causing the driver to lose control and spill his family onto the road into the path of an oncoming truck.

The author did not make it clear whether the story was factual, but whatever the case, it raises several issues.

First is the author's point that not only drunk and careless driving causes road accidents, but carelessness - and apparent callousness - by revellers who throw or spray water, often from high-pressure water guns, on any moving vehicle, regardless of danger to driver and passengers.

Second, the issue has to be lack of security and police presence at these events. I'm not a killjoy. This Songkran, I enjoyed a good soaking in Sukhumvit Soi 4 and had a great time. But I couldn't help noticing a total lack of a police presence in Soi 4 that could've acted either to prevent accidents and fights or catch anyone causing an accident or fight.

Third, you have the issue of limiting the festivities to certain areas, which clearly hasn't happened.

In Bangkok, while most festivities are concentrated in areas like Khao San Road and Soi 4, anyone can be attacked with water anywhere - and at the very least, that's a big inconvenience for a lot of people.

Finally, in specific relation to Stampfle's story, the question has to be raised of the safety and wisdom of carrying small children by motorcycle. I know this is mainly an issue of financial means, and Thailand probably can't apply the same strict standards to motorcycle safety as would be applied in the West (and I also admit that seeing a whole family tightly packed atop a motorcycle is one of this nation's cultural charms), but stricter safety measures surely have to be considered.

I have a list of suggestions to address all these concerns:

1. Strict zoning should be enforced, with most parts of any city or town being off limits.

2. Spraying or throwing water on passing motorcycles, bicycles or the driver of a similar vehicle (like a tuk-tuk) should be treated as a severe criminal offence, on a par with attempted murder if resulting in an accident - or murder, if resulting in a fatality.

3. A police presence should be much greater in "free-water" zones.

4. Helmet laws during Songkran should be tightly enforced.

5. People should be banned from transporting infants by motorcycle during the entire holiday week.

6. A special Songkran hotline should be set up specifically for reporting incidents, in order to get a quick police response.

7. Local and national government should organise a media campaign starting next January, with posters, billboards and print, television and radio ads educating people about what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour during Songkran, what is legal and illegal and how laws will be strictly enforced.

There's always next year, so there's always hope.

Dave Sherman

Bangkok

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North has worse problems than scantily clad women

Re: "Chiang Mai to ban alcohol at next year's Songkran festivities", News, April 19.

In reporting about the Songkran festivities in Chiang Mai, you wrote: "The Chiang Mai Cultural Council will also ask stage organisers to ban shows featuring young women in skimpy clothes dancing ... because they gave the city a bad image."

What is wrong in showing the beautiful bodies of women in (skimpy) clothes? Anyway, they had clothes!

I advise the Chiang Mai Cultural Council to ban all the monstrous, huge billboards that give the city a real and permanent bad image.

Chiang Mai Nick

Chiang Mai

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The people have a right to peaceful demonstrations

Re: "Protest about democratic principles is founded in bias", Letters, April 21.

In his rebuttal to my letter ("Democracy can only work in a free and just society", April 17), Anthony Adams suggests there was nothing wrong with our country's checks-and-balances system and that the protesters were an "urban-elite mob" who wanted to impose their wishes on the whole country. He also questions if I truly understand the meaning of democracy.

I will not respond to his argument about our checks-and-balances system. Those who have really followed our political situation can decide for themselves whether or not the system has been working as it was intended to.

As for my understanding of democracy, I do not believe that people's duty and democratic rights cease to exist after they cast their ballots.

We have to be vigilant in monitoring the actions of our representatives and the government. Staging a peaceful protest to express our dissatisfaction should be our last resort, but it is within our right.

If other people agree with the cause, they will join the protest. If not, there will be no public support, and the protest will eventually die down. I believe that this is how democracy should work.

And yes, I would support a peaceful protest by the "rural masses" if they were not satisfied with the government's actions.

If such a protest caused traffic jams and adverse effects on the economy, then that would be the price we would have to pay to live in a free society. It is incumbent on the government to ensure that people's concerns are heeded before public dissatisfaction grows and manifests itself in street protests.

My understanding of democracy may be limited, but I would not use a prejudicial (and semantically incorrect) word such as "mob" to describe any well-behaved group of protesters exercising their democratic rights.

Katha

Canada

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Thaksin was a clear and present danger to the nation

Re: "Protest about democratic principles is founded in bias", Letters, April 21.

Anthony Adams appears to be incredulous that a minority was able peacefully to force an unfit leader out office.

The issue was whether Thaksin was still a legitimate leader (whose legitimacy was compromised by the blatant conflict of interest in that Ample Rich-Shin-Temasek Bt73.3-billion tax-free deal enriching his family threefold during his term of office.)

Had this been the US or the UK, such a scandal would have been decisively taken up in Congress or parliament and the conflicted PM promptly booted out of office and jailed.

The snap election employed by Thaksin was improper and illegitimate. A democracy, after all, is not a beauty contest in which at every challenge the PM would call a snap election to demonstrate he remains "the fairest in the land" by virtue of the majority rural vote.

The system was dysfunctional, or else there would have been no need for the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) to be born, and the peaceful street protests in Bangkok would not have continued on strength after strength for so long.

Thaksin, in the mould of Ferdinand Marcos, had systematically suborned and destroyed democratic institutional checks and balances. Parliament was owned by Thaksin. Thaksin bought MPs and small parties here and there to create the Thai Rak Thai Party, with an overwhelming parliamentary majority that ensured Thaksin would never be placed under parliamentary scrutiny at any instance or for whatever cause.

The Senate was suborned as well as other agencies or institutions that would have provided checks and balances on corrupt abuses by Thaksin and his ministers.

In short, according to Auditor-General Jaruvan Maintaka, Thaksin had effectively legalised corruption in his regime. Copying Lee Kuan Yew's ways, Thaksin muzzled the free press, and any criticism has been threatened with billion-baht lawsuits. He appeared to embrace democracy when it suited him, but Thaksin was a dictator and oppressor in form and substance.

It is ridiculous for Adams to suggest that decent Thais should have continued to stay put while all this blatant corruption and constitutional abuse was going on.

In the Philippines and Indonesia, the people stayed put while their rogue leaders Marcos and Suharto circumvented the laws of their land and destroyed their democratic ideals and freedom.

No, we decent Thais would not allow a rogue leader like Thaksin to continue to disgrace our Kingdom and abuse our freedom. He was a danger and a disgrace to Thailand, and Thaksin had to be stopped.

It is even more ridiculous for Adams to suggest that what the PAD accomplished automatically gives licence to every ill-meaning mob extrajudicially to force a duly elected leader out of office. A disgruntled mob in the street without a just cause is just that, merely disgruntled.

I believe the PAD and those hundreds of thousands of protesters were protecting freedom and democracy, and they truly and clearly understood what democratic principles were about.

Adams views democracy simplistically, and Adams is simplistically wrong.

Adiz R

Bangkok

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Dictatorship of the masses is alive and well in Thailand

Thailand has again entered a very dangerous zone of elite dictatorship. Many "well-educated people" never seem satisfied with the results.

I think we should amend the Constitution to require that all Cabinet appointments be subject to approval from those with at least a college education, to ensure that all Thai governments are "clean" and conform to high ethical standards.

Furthermore, we should amend the Constitution to give university professors and groups of more than 50,000 well-educated citizens brave enough to take to the streets veto power over all government policies.

This way, the Thai Constitution would fully reflect a unique, Thai-style democracy.

Konklai

Bangkok