Parking rage fracas sparks flea market talks
Irate pair stick to their guns on poleaxed car
Police in Prawet are to call a meeting with district officers and the operators of four local flea markets this week to discuss parking issues after video clips showing two women attacking a pickup truck parked across the entrance to their house went viral.
Prawet police station chief, Pol Col Alongkorn Sirisongkhram, said Rachanikorn Lertwasana, 37, on Sunday lodged a complaint that her pickup truck, parked directly in front of the driveway of a house in the Seri Villa housing estate on Soi Srinakarin 55, was attacked and damaged by two women who live in the house.
The police said the pair used an axe and a metal pole to attack the pickup truck and were facing charges of property damage, carrying weapons in public and intimidating the vehicle’s owner.
Ms Rachanikorn, from Samut Sakhon province, claimed she parked in front of the house at about 11.15am on Sunday to go shopping at a nearby market. She thought the house was unoccupied because of a number of signs posted on the twin gates and which were fastened with wire.
She said it was her habit to apply the handbrake when parking her vehicle, but regretted doing so this time because it angered the two women who wanted to drive out of the house, but could not move the truck out of the way.
She told police she returned to the vehicle only 10 minutes after leaving it, to find onlookers surrounding her truck and the two women smashing it up. Some people were using their phones to video the incident and the clips went viral on social media.
One woman used an axe and the other used a long metal pole, Ms Rachanikorn said. When she tried to calm them down by apologising and giving them a wai, they threatened to hurt her. A bystander had to escort her away from the two angry women, she said.
Pol Col Alongkorn said the owner of the house had a history of filing complaints about vehicles blocking the driveway. He said there had been four complaints in the past three years, but no violence had been reported before.
He said although Ms Rachanikorn had not violated traffic regulations prohibiting parking in that area between 6am and 10am, she still faced a 500-baht fine for parking in a manner that obstructed traffic.
The two angry women in the video clip, later identified by police as Ratanachat Saengyoktrakarn, 61, and Boonsri Saengyoktrakarn, 57, were being summonsed to answer charges of damaging private property, intimidation and carrying weapons in public.
Ms Ratanachat and Ms Boonsri, whose house is surrounded by three of the four flea markets, called a press conference yesterday morning at the house to say the family had suffered from the irresponsible parking problem for nearly a decade.
They had to smash up the vehicle to protect their rights, they said. They did not feel they were overreacting because Ms Rachanikorn had hesitated about moving it out of the way when she returned to it.
They said they had called police to complain, but no one came to check the problem.
On a previous occasion, the sick father of a neighbour could not be rushed to hospital and died simply because someone had blocked the gate with their car, they said.
They also claimed they waited about half an hour for Ms Rachanikorn to return and were honking their car horn repeatedly to get her attention.
The two women refused to pay Ms Rachanikorn compensation f or t he damage to the pickup, estimated at 50,000 baht. They said the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration had to pay it, for failing to enforce land use laws on the Seri Villa housing estate.
Prawet district chief Thanasith Methpanmuang said the four markets on the Seri Villa housing estate were operating illegally.