I would like to know what, exactly, the white-shirted tourist police volunteers seen walking up and down Bangla Road in Patong in the evening are actually supposed to do.

Over the years, these foreigners have been seen doing honorable work, backing-up the under-staffed and over-worked Patong Police force by assisting confused tourists.

The last time I checked, I was told that their role was limited to liaising between tourists and the police in order to ease relations between the two. It was made clear to me that they have absolutely no police powers whatsoever – and rightly so – as they have no police training, nor are they vetted in any real way before being allowed to join.

On the evening of February 20, I was driving home through Patong’s one-way system and was held up in a queue of traffic on the beach road for a full 40 minutes. The hold-up was caused by traffic waiting to get through a check point at the end of Bangla Road. I was surprised to see that the road block was manned exclusively by foreign volunteers, without a Thai police officer in sight.

The volunteers were stopping and searching every car and motorbike going past and they were apparently completely ignorant of the length of time everyone was having to wait in the queue.

How can foreign volunteers have the right to stop and search private vehicles in this way and hold up traffic?

This check-point has become a regular feature over the past few weeks, but while inconvenient and annoying it has until now been run relatively smoothly by members of the Royal Thai Police force. I object to having a group of untrained amateurs (and foreigners) acting as if they have some kind of authority over me. To repeat the question: Exactly what official powers do the foreign volunteer police assistants have?