Odd, how driving practices vary from place to place and country to country. Doing what we think is safe and prudent in TV can get you injured or killed in other places, or vice versa.
I've done a lot of riding as a passenger in cars in Thailand. The concept of "no passing zone" doesn't exist there, at least in practice. Northern Thailand is mountainous with a lot of narrow roads. It is common for one car to decide to pass another when the passing car can see barely 50 yards ahead. They way they do it is that the car doing the passing will start rapidly beeping his horn. This is a signal for the car being passed to edge over as far to the left as possible. Any oncoming car will hear the beeping, know what is going on and will move as far to the right as possible. The passing car stays in the middle. The result is that three cars can fit somewhat snugly on a road that you'd have sworn could barely contain two.
Another oddity is pedestrian crossings at intersections. They're marked (sort of) But Thais see speed, stop and yield signs as suggestions and as a result there are cars going at various speeds mixing with pedestrians in the crosswalk. I learned early on that they way to cross is NOT to pick your openings and try to get from spot to spot as rapidly as possible. That only confuses things and makes it more dangerous for all concerned. Instead you start walking across at a constant speed. They'll see and avoid you. Scary, the first few times, as your instinct runs directly counter to what you need to do.
You see some of those regional differences here too. For example, Minnesotans are notorious for slowing down when on a freeway to allow merging cars to get on in front of them. Don't see that very much here especially on a crowded freeway. Another thing I see from time to time (still don't understand it) is when in a line of cars stopping for a red light will have a person in that line decide not to block an intersection: they'll stop short of a road or street entering on the right, so traffic coming from that way can get on. Some folks appreciate it. Others react as if you've personally and irreparably inconvenienced them. To me it is only common courtesy, but then again I'm from Minnesota...
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