First-year student dies in Bangkok road crash

[webfact]

First-year student dies in Bangkok road crash

By The Nation

 

BANGKOK: -- A first-year technology university student was killed after his SUV ran off the road and crashed into trees early Friday.
 

Police were alerted at 1:30am about the accident at the kilometre marker No 37 on the Bang Na-bound Kanchanapisek ring road in Bangkok’s Khan Na Yao district.

 

Rescuers found a Toyota Land Cruiser had crashed into and knocked down three trees about 50 metres off the road.

 

The body of Sutthawee Aroonwiwatkul, 19, a Khan Na Yao resident and student of the Thai-Nichi Institute of Technology, was found lying face-down in the roadside ditch.

 

Police suspect the SUV was speeding and lost control on the road made slippery by heavy rains. Police found rubber tracks indicating that Sutthawee had applied brakes for about 50 metres before crashing.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30327988

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2017-09-29

[Get Real]

I guess the school didn´t teach him enough to know the technology around the dangers of speeding.

Education is a killer project these days.

[jimster]

1 hour ago, Get Real said:

I guess the school didn´t teach him enough to know the technology around the dangers of speeding.

Education is a killer project these days.

That's a very simplistic analogy. "Technology around the dangers of speeding?" Don't know what that means - it's physics that explains how a car responds to braking at different speeds. Add in some wet and slippery roads and it's quite different from when the road surface is dry.

 

Driving at speed on an expressway (like the one described in the story) under normal, dry conditions is quite safe.

 

Driving at say 130 or 140 compared to 120 doesn't make a big difference - one need only look to Australia's Northern Territory or even Italian, Polish, French and German Autobahns/expressways (though these are congested at times) to see that speed by itself is not normally an issue. Yes, driver training in these countries is better than in Thailand but I think one needs to look closely to the way drivers (particularly young drivers such as the young man in this story who was killed) react to different road hazards and conditions.

 

When driving in the wet one should slow down proportional to the amount of rainfall coming down and on the road. Last night there was a ferocious thunderstorm and like other drivers, I could only drive at around 30-40km/h on a road where one normally does 90-120. In this situation, almost every driver in Thailand slows down to an appropriate speed, besides, only a maniac would drive much faster than I did in these conditions, the rain was pelting down so heavily that it was blinding (and it was dark too).

 

The driver in question should have driven much more carefully and instead of applying full brake pressure, which locked up his wheels (as he undoubtedly went into a state of panic) should have focused on reducing his speed using engine braking. If he had driven at the same speed he did during dry conditions, he probably would still be alive now. Sad story but unfortunately all too common.

[Get Real]

53 minutes ago, jimster said:

That's a very simplistic analogy. "Technology around the dangers of speeding?" Don't know what that means - it's physics that explains how a car responds to braking at different speeds. Add in some wet and slippery roads and it's quite different from when the road surface is dry.

 

Driving at speed on an expressway (like the one described in the story) under normal, dry conditions is quite safe.

 

Driving at say 130 or 140 compared to 120 doesn't make a big difference - one need only look to Australia's Northern Territory or even Italian, Polish, French and German Autobahns/expressways (though these are congested at times) to see that speed by itself is not normally an issue. Yes, driver training in these countries is better than in Thailand but I think one needs to look closely to the way drivers (particularly young drivers such as the young man in this story who was killed) react to different road hazards and conditions.

 

When driving in the wet one should slow down proportional to the amount of rainfall coming down and on the road. Last night there was a ferocious thunderstorm and like other drivers, I could only drive at around 30-40km/h on a road where one normally does 90-120. In this situation, almost every driver in Thailand slows down to an appropriate speed, besides, only a maniac would drive much faster than I did in these conditions, the rain was pelting down so heavily that it was blinding (and it was dark too).

 

The driver in question should have driven much more carefully and instead of applying full brake pressure, which locked up his wheels (as he undoubtedly went into a state of panic) should have focused on reducing his speed using engine braking. If he had driven at the same speed he did during dry conditions, he probably would still be alive now. Sad story but unfortunately all too common.

Thanks for the well over thought development on my sarcastic comment. A little bit over worked, though. 

Whatever it would be a technological college or a university, I will assume that physics is on the education plan anyway. 
 

However, thanks a bunch for the clarification. 

[jimster]

1 minute ago, Get Real said:

Thanks for the well over thought development on my sarcastic comment. A little bit over worked, though. 

Whatever it would be a technological college or a university, I will assume that physics is on the education plan anyway. 
 

However, thanks a bunch for the clarification. 

You're welcome:) and no I didn't think you were being sarcastic, it appeared that you didn't really know what you were talking about. Blaming one factor alone and ignoring the most crucial factors in this whole story, which was the wet and slippery road and how the driver reacted to it.

[Get Real]

46 minutes ago, jimster said:

You're welcome:) and no I didn't think you were being sarcastic, it appeared that you didn't really know what you were talking about. Blaming one factor alone and ignoring the most crucial factors in this whole story, which was the wet and slippery road and how the driver reacted to it.

I guess you know now.

[Ossy]

One sad death, in a day in Thailand in which there are, on average, 80 deaths.

More sad facts are that this presumably wealthy/spoilt teenager was driving late at night, presumably after some form of socialising, and was probably tired, if not intoxicated, and at a speed that felled three trees. Good thing there were no slower cars or scooters on his near-side or they might have perished, too. Despite the wet conditions, was the road bendy, thereabouts?

 

Yes, you will detect a cynical tone to my summary, but how many of you will be shaking your heads in pity, rather than in disagreement? For whatever reason, this 'kid' was incapable of driving his high-powered car safely. Another sad fact is that news that generates cynicism and irony is most likely to find its way onto the front page and into tv.

 

I wonder how many of the other 79 road deaths might have made for more worthy news. What about those 2 kids - just hypothetical ones, happily - who were run-over by a pickup that had lost control due to a puncture, after crossing on unmarked crater in the road? Maybe just boring, as a media story . . . too many of them to choose from. Too, true!

 

 

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. Isaac Asimov

[RichardColeman]

Speeding - nuff said. Next.

[decca60]

Always a pain to see a young life gone BUT I let you think about the way this is reported:

The SUV ran off  the road.. police suspect the SUV was speeding on a wet road...the Toyota Land Cruiser crashed into a knocked down tree...

Unbelievable progress of self driving cars in this country!!!!

Obviously the 19 y.o driver of this super car is responsible for nothing and died due to this idiot SUV. I propose to take Toyota to court for it !!!! 

Body found in a roadside ditch meaning no seat belt surely due to the SUV which refused to automatically buckling up....

Everything is normal.....

 

[Ossy]

14 hours ago, decca60 said:

Always a pain to see a young life gone BUT I let you think about the way this is reported:

The SUV ran off  the road.. police suspect the SUV was speeding on a wet road...the Toyota Land Cruiser crashed into a knocked down tree...

Unbelievable progress of self driving cars in this country!!!!

Obviously the 19 y.o driver of this super car is responsible for nothing and died due to this idiot SUV. I propose to take Toyota to court for it !!!! 

Body found in a roadside ditch meaning no seat belt surely due to the SUV which refused to automatically buckling up....

Everything is normal.....

 

Yes, you're right . . . too many Q's are left unanswered, but I guess that's what makes for a good forum topic - provocative and controversial, so that we can all get stuck in, e.g. I reckon it was suicide by drowning, after jumping in the ditch to which he'd walked 50m, after hitting 'the tree stump'. Pity the media can't do more to pressurise the 'government' into designing and implementing a series of televised road-safety seminars . . . for compulsory viewing!!!.

The sad conclusion is FEWER ROAD DEATHS (espec fast SUV's) = FEWER 'GOOD' STORIES

[jimster]

29 minutes ago, Ossy said:

Yes, you're right . . . too many Q's are left unanswered, but I guess that's what makes for a good forum topic - provocative and controversial, so that we can all get stuck in, e.g. I reckon it was suicide by drowning, after jumping in the ditch to which he'd walked 50m, after hitting 'the tree stump'. Pity the media can't do more to pressurise the 'government' into designing and implementing a series of televised road-safety seminars . . . for compulsory viewing!!!.

The sad conclusion is FEWER ROAD DEATHS (espec fast SUV's) = FEWER 'GOOD' STORIES

Exactly.

 

BTW to answer your original question was the road "curvy" nope. It doesn't sound like you are familiar with Kanchanaphisek road (eastern outer ring road) in Bangkok, but it's a mostly straight, 64km long 8-lane road. There are only a couple of very minor curves and the speed limit is 120km/h throughout. It doesn't say in the article, but he may have been heading towards the exit closest to his place, which is an almost 2km long off-ramp and struck the trees around there.