While the police mannequins that have popped up on Bangkok street corners over the past few months have not really posed a serious deterrent – as the boys in brown, in their last, permanent inactive posts, are far too easy to detect as being the dummies they are from a distance of even a block away – there is one theory that this is all part of a bigger, less innocuous ploy.
Eventually, so familiar with seeing the plastic patrol cops all over town, Bangkok drivers may be lured into a false sense of security and naturally begin to speed by every intersection, confident that the only eyes upon them are resin; though the real police meanwhile may just take advantage of this lax attitude and reappear on duty, keeping as still as the dummies themselves (something that shouldn't prove to difficult for some considering their lack of manoeuvrability) thus catching out the lackadaisical motorists and fining them (all very fairly) on the spot.
Photography by Asit Prueangwet.
