Fatal Samui boat crash: Weather warnings 'ignored'

[khunPer]

6 minutes ago, farcanell said:

That’s the problem.... no reliable information, just state kept secrets. And that’s being generous, because it presumes that the state actually knows what the information is.

 

im sure you could easily google the information for more responsible countries... not so much for others... like N Korea. (What’s up there with those fishermen being found half dead in Japan)

 

a very quick look (2 links) showed this for NSW; (see chart)

15 dead recreationally... 1 dead commercially 2014/15

 

australia has about 1/3 of Thailand’s population (?.).... so... very roughly, thailand (run properly.... I crack myself up) would be on par with NSW if there were 3 or 4 deaths annually

 

a huge difference for tourists or paying users.... and... I’m not sure if this fatality was a user or a provider

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks.

Another problem when comparing stats are also, that we should include number of tourists relative to population, and some level of commercial boat/speedboat traffic relative to population and number of tourists. I.e. would be like comparing fatal motorcycle accidents per population in Thailand with fatal motorcycle accidents per population in Scandinavia, where the number of folks driving motorcycle is extremely low, compared to Southeast Asia. But weighing stats for comparison can also be a quite difficult job...

 

To my knowledge is not every year there are fatal commercial speedboat accidents in Samui-waters, so the average is probably lower than the four death recorded from the accident in 2016; however in the FMP commuter speedboat accident 7-years ago two was missing (dead?) and 40 injured (two boats collided at night); and more severe in 2005 an overloaded FMP-speedboat collapsed, and at least 15 people, mainly foreigners, died.

[evadgib]

The 2005 and 2012 boat quoted above was the very same vessel with the same clown at the wheel on both occasions.

[farcanell]

11 minutes ago, khunPer said:

Thanks.

Another problem when comparing stats are also, that we should include number of tourists relative to population, and some level of commercial boat/speedboat traffic relative to population and number of tourists. I.e. would be like comparing fatal motorcycle accidents per population in Thailand with fatal motorcycle accidents per population in Scandinavia, where the number of folks driving motorcycle is extremely low, compared to Southeast Asia. But weighing stats for comparison can also be a quite difficult job...

 

To my knowledge is not every year there are fatal commercial speedboat accidents in Samui-waters, so the average is probably lower than the four death recorded from the accident in 2016; however in the FMP commuter speedboat accident 7-years ago two was missing (dead?) and 40 injured (two boats collided at night); and more severe in 2005 an overloaded FMP-speedboat collapsed, and at least 15 people, mainly foreigners, died.

There ya go in a nutshell... paragraph One clearly demonstrates a need to pay someone to develop a computer program to come up with this type of information.... but at best, it will still be biased

 

and will probably only be used in blogs. ????

 

 

[spidermike007]

2 hours ago, khunPer said:

Yes, about 130 by 100,000 population, which is around 60,000 at Koh Samui; i.e. some 80 traffic death a year, or 6-7 a month, instead of the 2-4 often reported (before, when we could see the police report in the printed local newspaper) as monthly figure...

 

I however found a stat with number of British tourists dying abroad, and that says 4,110 in 2013/2014.

 

An article in Daily Express 15th January 2016, "These popular beach holiday hotspots see HUNDREDS of British deaths every year" says that "In 2014 and 2015, 3,760 British people died abroad", which seem to include both expats and tourists. Number one country is Spain – "One of the main reasons why Spain is the most common place for Brits to die is because it has a huge number of ex-pats living there" – and number three is (surprisingly to me) Switzeland, however...

 

 

  Quote

Second to Spain is Thailand. 

It was found that 150 British tourists had died in 2015 alone.

A fifth of that number died in the Thai resort of Pattaya, notorious for its strip clubs and sex bars. 

It was cars and motorcycle crashes that claimed the most amount of lives, with most of the victims possessing a high level of alcohol in their system.

Yes. Motorcycles really make the difference here. Many of us drive motorcycles or scooters here, and it is dangerous getting on the roads with some of these other drivers. 

 

Getting on a scooter, or a motorcycle anywhere in Thailand, much less Phuket, Phangan, Dark Tao, or Samui without a very good helmet, is like playing Russian Roulette with three or four bullets in the chamber. It is absolutely asking for problems. The degree of recklessness here is astounding. And many foreigners come here thinking "how much trouble could I get in on a little scooter, on a tropical island"? Well, the answer is alot. The amount of foreigners who are killed on the Southern islands is staggering. Most are not reported in the media. I had a friend who worked for Samui rescue for many years, and said the numbers were about 30-60 a month, on Samui, Phangan and Koh Tao. The official number is about 3 a month. Rider beware. Use as good a helmet as you can afford, and do not use these eggshells pieces of crap. They crack at the first impact, and what lies underneath them? Your skull, which is very delicate. 
 
Just ask yourself- do I have enough problems already, without a broken skull, or smashed head, or face injury, or lost eye? I have two friends who have been in motorbike accidents on Samui within the last two years. One still cannot walk, or talk or function on her own, from a motorbike accident, where she hit her head on the pavement going only 20 kph. The other one has lost alot of his mental capacity after hitting his head. He insisted for years he would never wear a helmet. Now, he seems 15 years older. 

 

I was told by a very reliable source. He did not have an agenda. He rescued alot of the survivors. He attended to alot of the ones who did not make it. The press here is highly censored. The report only what the so called leaders want them to report. Nothing else. Social media? Why would social media report these statistics? They report individual accidents, but not overall statistics. Anything you read about accidents on Samui in the media would be false. 

 

 

• Road deaths are now calculated based on fatalities on-site. Victims dying later in hospital not counted.
• In 2000 there was an average of 30 deaths a month on Koh Samui (official figures released each month, at that time).
• Now it is stated that Koh Samui has 3-5 deaths each month (using the new way of reporting road deaths, which means nothing to anyone with a discerning mind).
• In the last ten years the population has almost doubled and there are now 5x more vehicles on Koh Samui.
• Based on ‘official figures’ today it is possible to estimate that Koh Samui currently has 60 deaths per million per year. (Compared to 23 in London.) Based on the population and traffic density statistics from 10 years ago Koh Samui has in reality 720 deaths per million per year. This is probably the highest rate of road deaths in the world. Samui is a fatality death spot that nobody is willing to acknowledge!
•  

 

The authorities here deserve little respect, as they do not earn it. The police care little for the people, do not engage in any sort of traffic safety, only show up after an accident has taken place, do not ever pull anyone over for reckless driving, threatening lives on the highway, speeding, or driving while drunk. Sure, they nab people at checkpoints. But, most of those checkpoints just slow up traffic on the highway, and rarely result in making the highways safer. So, unless and until they start doing their jobs, they will continue to get little respect from the public. You get what you earn in this life. Most cops here cannot be taken seriously, as they are not serious people, and treat their job as a private franchise, rarely engage in law enforcement, or protection of the public.

 

 

[poohy]

Coming back to the speed boats

tourists assume the  "Drivers " are captains as in their home country, here it is simply not true (they are in the most woefully trained and lack basic sea training or common sense this combined with lack of law enforcement creates a perfect storm.

Saldy Of course the above applies across the whole of Thai transportation

[cookieqw]

I’ve never understood why these captains don’t wear all the insignia that the rank affords them, after all, car park attendants and bus drivers are well blinged up ?

[khunPer]

5 hours ago, evadgib said:

The 2005 and 2012 boat quoted above was the very same vessel with the same clown at the wheel on both occasions.

 miss a "wow" icon – thanks – amazing that same operator, and same steering wheel "officer" could continue after a heavy overloaded speedboat accident with probably the highest fatal-number in Samui boat accident history.

[PAIBKK]

A captain on a boat is an officer with (at least) 6 years university in the Western World. In Thailand a speedboat captain is most of the time a brain dead monkey (from Isan) that almost can read or/and write.

[khunPer]

5 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

 

  Quote

Second to Spain is Thailand. 

It was found that 150 British tourists had died in 2015 alone.

A fifth of that number died in the Thai resort of Pattaya, notorious for its strip clubs and sex bars. 

It was cars and motorcycle crashes that claimed the most amount of lives, with most of the victims possessing a high level of alcohol in their system.

Yes. Motorcycles really make the difference here. Many of us drive motorcycles or scooters here, and it is dangerous getting on the roads with some of these other drivers. 

 

Getting on a scooter, or a motorcycle anywhere in Thailand, much less Phuket, Phangan, Dark Tao, or Samui without a very good helmet, is like playing Russian Roulette with three or four bullets in the chamber. It is absolutely asking for problems. The degree of recklessness here is astounding. And many foreigners come here thinking "how much trouble could I get in on a little scooter, on a tropical island"? Well, the answer is alot. The amount of foreigners who are killed on the Southern islands is staggering. Most are not reported in the media. I had a friend who worked for Samui rescue for many years, and said the numbers were about 30-60 a month, on Samui, Phangan and Koh Tao. The official number is about 3 a month. Rider beware. Use as good a helmet as you can afford, and do not use these eggshells pieces of crap. They crack at the first impact, and what lies underneath them? Your skull, which is very delicate. 
 
Just ask yourself- do I have enough problems already, without a broken skull, or smashed head, or face injury, or lost eye? I have two friends who have been in motorbike accidents on Samui within the last two years. One still cannot walk, or talk or function on her own, from a motorbike accident, where she hit her head on the pavement going only 20 kph. The other one has lost alot of his mental capacity after hitting his head. He insisted for years he would never wear a helmet. Now, he seems 15 years older. 

 

I was told by a very reliable source. He did not have an agenda. He rescued alot of the survivors. He attended to alot of the ones who did not make it. The press here is highly censored. The report only what the so called leaders want them to report. Nothing else. Social media? Why would social media report these statistics? They report individual accidents, but not overall statistics. Anything you read about accidents on Samui in the media would be false. 

 

 

• Road deaths are now calculated based on fatalities on-site. Victims dying later in hospital not counted.
• In 2000 there was an average of 30 deaths a month on Koh Samui (official figures released each month, at that time).
• Now it is stated that Koh Samui has 3-5 deaths each month (using the new way of reporting road deaths, which means nothing to anyone with a discerning mind).
• In the last ten years the population has almost doubled and there are now 5x more vehicles on Koh Samui.
• Based on ‘official figures’ today it is possible to estimate that Koh Samui currently has 60 deaths per million per year. (Compared to 23 in London.) Based on the population and traffic density statistics from 10 years ago Koh Samui has in reality 720 deaths per million per year. This is probably the highest rate of road deaths in the world. Samui is a fatality death spot that nobody is willing to acknowledge!
•  

 

The authorities here deserve little respect, as they do not earn it. The police care little for the people, do not engage in any sort of traffic safety, only show up after an accident has taken place, do not ever pull anyone over for reckless driving, threatening lives on the highway, speeding, or driving while drunk. Sure, they nab people at checkpoints. But, most of those checkpoints just slow up traffic on the highway, and rarely result in making the highways safer. So, unless and until they start doing their jobs, they will continue to get little respect from the public. You get what you earn in this life. Most cops here cannot be taken seriously, as they are not serious people, and treat their job as a private franchise, rarely engage in law enforcement, or protection of the public.

 

 

Principally I agree with a lot of what you're saying, but lack of reliable information or statistics, make it becoming too much speculation, in my view, resulting in bashing Samui in particular, and Thailand in general.

 

As one poster asked in another thread about traffic accidents and death on Samui, where the high number of 70 or more death per month also was mentioned, where do they keep the dead bodies..?

 

Have you been to the city morgue in Nathon..?

 

I have – because of a fatal traffic accident – and it's not that big, and they are "storing" all kind of dead people there, not only traffic victims; the poster mentioned above had same experience. In that particular thread I asked, if some of the other hospitals, than the public hospital in Nathon with the city morgue, also stored dead bodies – 70-80 a month from traffic accidents only are a lot, relative to the city morgue's some 15 to 21 cool compartments (I did not count them, but from my photos it seem like 15, plus eventually one or two more rows of 3 body-refrigerators)  – but nobody answered.

 

It's difficult to discuss and compare both traffic death, and number of death from speedboat accidents, with reliable information; undocumented assumptions just make us speculate...

[PoorSucker]

9 hours ago, FitnessHealthTravel said:

I think a quick call around to the 5 International and 1 public Hospital on Samui

Name the five international hospitals on Samui, please. 

I lived here for twelve years, and I want to know which one I never heard about. 

[Sir Dude]

Calling this guy "Captain" is very generous and such titles are very lightly thrown around here (engineer is another that springs to mind). I bet it wasn't his boat and I doubt whether he would have had any required licenses to be doing what he was. What, does anyone think this guy constructively analyzed the daily weather reports before jumping behind the wheel in a fit of glee? Yeah, right...didn't think so.

People blindly jump on and ride such things assuming the standards are the same as where they come from, when in fact, more often than not it's just some totally unqualified moron trying to leech the tourist cash-cow that has seen some others do it and get money.