Some 20 taxi drivers used their cars to block two roads at the Victory Monument at noon Thursday to pressure the government to resign.

They started blocking the inbound Rajvithi Road in front of the Center One shopping mall at 12:30 pm and later on blocked the inbound Phayathai Road.

The members of the Taxi Community Radio Club said if the government refused to resign by 4 pm, they would use 20,000 taxis to block all roads in Bangkok.

– Extracted from “Taxi drivers block roads at Victory Monument”, The Nation, 9 April 2009.

Whether these 20,000 taxis materialise or not it is, all the same, a spectacular threat. Unprecedented? Imagine the road rage. Imagine the chaos. Imagine the cries of “people power”. Clearly, threats of civil disruption were never the preserve of these guys alone. Shutting down Bangkok’s arteries to get the PM and a few Privy Councillors to resign? It took about a week for the airport siege to have its desired effect. How many hours would it take for abandoned taxis and sit-ins to push the situation to the brink?

Readers in Bangkok, particularly anyone around the Victory Monument area (busy at the best of times!), can feel free to send any updates that come their way.