Yesterday we took delivery of our new car from the main Toyota dealer in Sukhumvit Road, Pattaya. As usual I was like a kid with a new toy until I was informed I can’t (legally) drive a car with the red number plates between 7p.m and 7a.m. The white plates will not arrive for at least one month.

What on earth is all this about? Apparently the car is not actually registered to me until the white plate arrives, but why does that determine what time of day I can drive the thing? If that’s the case why not say I can’t drive it at all?

As many say TiT (this is Thailand) but this has to be one of the craziest things I have ever heard of here.

Apparently most people ignore the law and drive anyway, much to the delight of the police and their “fines”. Indeed I have no choice as I don’t finish work until after 7 p.m and need to drive home. Bizarrely even the Toyota people told me to do this and it was them who told me about the law in the first place.

When I went out last night I was consciously looking for red plates and saw quite a few so obviously many other people are in the same boat.

I found one website, www.expatmotors.co.th where it says there is NO restriction on red plate driving. I contacted them and they said they thought the law was changed two years ago. This is NOT the case! There was a rumour that it had changed but it wasn’t and it is STILL illegal to drive a red plate car between 7p.m and 7a.m and also illegal to drive the car outside the province in which it was purchased, in my case Chonburi. Apparently the fine for breaking the law is 50-100 baht providing you have the brown police book that can prove you DO own it and up to 2000 baht and/or imprisonment if you don’t.

As I have the book it looks like I just have to keep my fingers crossed and maybe pay a few small(ish) fines to the Pattaya police.