Sad Start To Songkran When Pickup Loaded With 23 People Crashes

[sriracha john]

Seven killed in pickup crash

A pickup truck overloaded with 23 passengers returning to the Northeast for the Thai New Year overturned Tuesday after a front tyre burst, killing seven people and injuring another 16, police said. Songkran will be held from April 13 to 17. The pickup, packed with labourers heading back to Sisaket province from Bankgok for an early start to the Songkran revelries, burst a tyre in Surin province in the Northeast. The driver lost control of the vehicle which crashed and overturned.

Sadly continued here:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/b...s.php?id=117855

[Wolfie]

Very sad indeed, a tragic waste of life...

... but this isn't a Songkran related accident (other than they were on the way home for Songkran) Tire burst, could happen to anyone at anytime, happened to me last week!

[Crow Boy]

Very sad indeed, a tragic waste of life...

... but this isn't a Songkran related accident (other than they were on the way home for Songkran) Tire burst, could happen to anyone at anytime, happened to me last week!

pedantically correct it is not a Songkran accident but they were headed home for the festival - irrespective it is a sad start to what will be the usual carnage as a result of overladen vehicles in poor state of repair, alcohol, and fatigue.

CB

[Heng]

Gotta check those tires for nails as well, half a nail or screw pushed too far into your tire where you haven't noticed can ruin your day right quick.

Checked tires that aren't over age, overloaded (as mentioned), and haven't reached their wear bars usually don't just burst. I have mine changed every 30-40k km and also have my driver do visual checks regularly (in addition to checking myself). Treat your car like a well maintained airplane and you got much better odds of getting from A to B.

[Master of the court]

Gotta check those tires for nails as well, half a nail or screw pushed too far into your tire where you haven't noticed can ruin your day right quick.

Checked tires that aren't over age, overloaded (as mentioned), and haven't reached their wear bars usually don't just burst. I have mine changed every 30-40k km and also have my driver do visual checks regularly (in addition to checking myself). Treat your car like a well maintained airplane and you got much better odds of getting from A to B.

Well , you could also use common sense.............23 people on a pick up........ .......the driver would go direct in jail in many other countries, for sure.

[Creeper]

Gotta check those tires for nails as well, half a nail or screw pushed too far into your tire where you haven't noticed can ruin your day right quick.

Checked tires that aren't over age, overloaded (as mentioned), and haven't reached their wear bars usually don't just burst. I have mine changed every 30-40k km and also have my driver do visual checks regularly (in addition to checking myself). Treat your car like a well maintained airplane and you got much better odds of getting from A to B.

I had a screw in my tyre that was found by The Toyota Engineers at my service interval, I wouldn't have spotted it myself.

[jeffrosner]

No one mentioned the speed. It was also overloaded.

Why is anyone surprised it that it burst?

Do you think the driver put more air in the tires to compensate for the load?

Fly an airplane with too much weight and you'll find out why we call WEIGHT and BALANCE.

JR

[CymruAmByth]

Gotta check those tires for nails as well, half a nail or screw pushed too far into your tire where you haven't noticed can ruin your day right quick.

Checked tires that aren't over age, overloaded (as mentioned), and haven't reached their wear bars usually don't just burst. I have mine changed every 30-40k km and also have my driver do visual checks regularly (in addition to checking myself). Treat your car like a well maintained airplane and you got much better odds of getting from A to B.

I had a screw in my tyre that was found by The Toyota Engineers at my service interval, I wouldn't have spotted it myself.

I had to STOP the Toyota Engineer taking a screw out at my last service!!

He said "I take out and you go get fixed"

I said "How the <deleted> am I going to drive anywhere to get it fixed with no air in it?"

He said "Ohhh, chai, me not think"

Methinks there is a lot of non-thinking going on...especially loading a pick up with 23 people.

However...RIP and condolences to those involved and a speedy recovery for the injured.

Edited April 3, 2007 by CymruAmByth

[Heng]

Gotta check those tires for nails as well, half a nail or screw pushed too far into your tire where you haven't noticed can ruin your day right quick.

Checked tires that aren't over age, overloaded (as mentioned), and haven't reached their wear bars usually don't just burst. I have mine changed every 30-40k km and also have my driver do visual checks regularly (in addition to checking myself). Treat your car like a well maintained airplane and you got much better odds of getting from A to B.

Well , you could also use common sense.............23 people on a pick up........ .......the driver would go direct in jail in many other countries, for sure.

Well, all of that I mentioned IS common sense.

[Heng]

Gotta check those tires for nails as well, half a nail or screw pushed too far into your tire where you haven't noticed can ruin your day right quick.

Checked tires that aren't over age, overloaded (as mentioned), and haven't reached their wear bars usually don't just burst. I have mine changed every 30-40k km and also have my driver do visual checks regularly (in addition to checking myself). Treat your car like a well maintained airplane and you got much better odds of getting from A to B.

I had a screw in my tyre that was found by The Toyota Engineers at my service interval, I wouldn't have spotted it myself.

Great to hear. It's something anyone can and should instruct their dealership, quick oil change center, local mechanic, etc. to do at regular intervals. Rotate the tires, check for nails and pull them out, thanks.

[cdnvic]

A pickup with 23 people should never make it from Bangkok to Surin. How many police watched them go by along the way I wonder?

[solent01]

No one mentioned the speed. It was also overloaded.

Why is anyone surprised it that it burst?

Do you think the driver put more air in the tires to compensate for the load?

Fly an airplane with too much weight and you'll find out why we call WEIGHT and BALANCE.

JR

Agree in princible, but 23 Thai's weighing on average 50Kg is 1.15 tonnes, most modern pickups can carry upto 1 tonne with no real problem, the issue I think is more balance (aft CofG), driving too fast and probably in an old beat up pickup with worn out tyres..........

All the same, not a good start to the holiday period, and fear much more of the same to come. RIP

[Heng]

A pickup with 23 people should never make it from Bangkok to Surin. How many police watched them go by along the way I wonder?

There might have been a traffic citation or two in the crumpled burning wreckage. The police should be enforcing the law, but they are an easily overwhelmed check against widespread stupidity.

[cdnvic]

A pickup with 23 people should never make it from Bangkok to Surin. How many police watched them go by along the way I wonder?

There might have been a traffic citation or two in the crumpled burning wreckage. The police should be enforcing the law, but they are an easily overwhelmed check against widespread stupidity.

Yeah.... overwhelmed.

[lingling]

Gotta check those tires for nails as well, half a nail or screw pushed too far into your tire where you haven't noticed can ruin your day right quick.

Checked tires that aren't over age, overloaded (as mentioned), and haven't reached their wear bars usually don't just burst. I have mine changed every 30-40k km and also have my driver do visual checks regularly (in addition to checking myself). Treat your car like a well maintained airplane and you got much better odds of getting from A to B.

I'd say overinflation is the biggest threat to tires here. Every time I fill air at gas stations, every time I leave it at the dealer for service etc I have a hard time explaining to them that the tires should not be inflated to the max pressure they are rated for. They seem to have no clue why every car has a sticker with the correct tire pressure for that vehicle listed. "26 psi" "thammai noi jang...?"

[cdnvic]

I don't know what it's like with truck tires but I've gotten some pretty sub-standard motorcycle tires here before. Are there dodgy truck and car tires out there too?

[chownah]

Is there some law that says you can't put 23 people in a pickup?...in Thailand?

[toptuan]

Did I detect just a teeny-weeny bit of class snobbery by the writer of that Bangkok Post article?

In modern times the festival has come to be marred in Thailand by surging death tolls on the highways as urban labourers migrate back to their provincial homes for alcoholic binges and water fights

May be true, but the wording seemed just a tad bit arrogant to me. So it's only the soused urban laborers who run up the death tolls on the highways? Any other causes? Any other class of people represented?

Am I being too touchy about class differences here, or did anyone else take a double-take when you read it? I'm trying to picture the same sentence in a western paper: "July 4th in America has come to be marred by the drunken Indians who sell fireworks to minors."

[Heng]

Sounds like an inferiority complex *on someone else's behalf*

All classes get drunk and binge drink. Laborers in the back of pick up trucks do indeed often do so out in the open though.

[qualtrough]

I had to get an innertube replaced the other day. While waiting I checked out the pile of truck tires they had lying around. Truly frightening-they were all worn right down to the cord. Not just bald, right down to the cord.

[toptuan]

Sounds like an inferiority complex *on someone else's behalf*

Can you deal with the comment on it's own merits, aside from the fact that I live in Isaan? A needless side-swipe. I teach journalism, and I was more concerned with the way the statement came across in the paper. It seems sub-standard to throw that sort of reference into a factual article about an accident. Didn't you react at all to the example of "drunk Indians" that I gave?

All classes get drunk and binge drink. Laborers in the back of pick up trucks do indeed often do so out in the open though.

The article said they they go home to binge drink there. This article said nothing about this group of victims drinking along the way before the accident. Now I think it's you who are are reading a little too much into it and I dare say your own biases are showing.

Edited April 3, 2007 by toptuan

[Heng]

Sounds like an inferiority complex *on someone else's behalf*

Can you deal with the comment on it's own merits, aside from the fact that I live in Isaan? A needless side-swipe. I teach journalism, and I was more concerned with the the way the statement came across in the paper. Didn't you react at all to the example of "drunk Indians" that I gave?

All classes get drunk and binge drink. Laborers in the back of pick up trucks do indeed often do so out in the open though.

The article said they they go home to binge drink there. This article said nothing about this group of victims drinking along the way before the accident. Now I think it's you who are are reading a little too much into it and I dare say your own biases are showing.

Not a sideswipe at all. I think I may have omitted a smiley there.

Sounds like an inferiority complex *on someone else's behalf*

There. Look how the meaning has changed. Hmm.

I have nothing against laborers who drink and drive along the way home. Heck, I even have been known to get them started with a case of whisky to help them celebrate.

[sriracha john]

Very sad indeed, a tragic waste of life...

... but this isn't a Songkran related accident (other than they were on the way home for Songkran) Tire burst, could happen to anyone at anytime, happened to me last week!

I agree the magnitude of 7 dead and 16 injured could happen anytime 23 people are packed into a pickup truck designed for carrying 5 people and cargo.

Edited April 3, 2007 by sriracha john

[sriracha john]

I had to get an innertube replaced the other day. While waiting I checked out the pile of truck tires they had lying around. Truly frightening-they were all worn right down to the cord. Not just bald, right down to the cord.

I've seen the same... people using tires waaaaaay past their shelf-life.

Wondered if the pile was waiting to be made into retread tires and resold?

[sriracha john]

Very sad indeed, a tragic waste of life...

... but this isn't a Songkran related accident (other than they were on the way home for Songkran) Tire burst, could happen to anyone at anytime, happened to me last week!

I agree the magnitude of 7 dead and 16 injured could happen anytime 23 people are packed into a pickup truck designed for carrying 5 people and cargo.

*correction*: I agree the magnitude of 7 dead and 16 18 injured could happen anytime 23 25 people are packed into a pickup truck designed for carrying 5 people and cargo.

Seven killed in pick-up accident

Seven people, including two elderly women and a child, were killed and 18 others injured when a pickup truck taking workers from Bangkok to Si Sa Ket, overturned after a front tyre burst in Surin's Prasat district, police said Tuesday.

Police rushed to the 20th kilometre of Chokchai-Dech Udom road at 9.30am to find the wrecked truck and the dead and injured passengers scattered everywhere.

Five people were killed instantly, including two unidentified women in their 60s and a boy aged between 2 and 4 years. The injured were rushed to Surin and Prasat hospitals and two were later pronounced dead.

Police found the pickup truck - modified to carry more passengers - was hired to take 25 workers from Bangkok to Ban Kantharom in Si Sa Ket's Khukhan district to celebrate Songkran.

Police suspected the tyre burst because the truck was overloaded They arrested Boonsuay Sura, 30, for reckless driving and manslaughter.

- The Nation

[cdnvic]

Police suspected the tyre burst because the truck was overloaded They arrested Boonsuay Sura, 30, for reckless driving and manslaughter.

- The Nation

Would be so much easier to ticket them for overloading before someone died.

[Heng]

It'd be even easier (on the part of the dead to still be breathing) to not overload the pickup in the first place. Ticketing (while it should be done)these folks doesn't actually lessen the vehicle's load or # of passengers.

[cdnvic]

It'd be even easier (on the part of the dead to still be breathing) to not overload the pickup in the first place. Ticketing (while it should be done)these folks doesn't actually lessen the vehicle's load or # of passengers.

I was assuming that after the ticket is written they don't just let them go on their way with 20+ people in the truck still. But I probably assume too much.

[Heng]

It'd be even easier (on the part of the dead to still be breathing) to not overload the pickup in the first place. Ticketing (while it should be done)these folks doesn't actually lessen the vehicle's load or # of passengers.

I was assuming that after the ticket is written they don't just let them go on their way with 20+ people in the truck still. But I probably assume too much.

That would result in bottlenecks of laborers, migrant workers, and anyone else who overload their trucks, to be fair, roadside scratching their heads on how to get home all along major highways at police checkpoints. True, regularly enforced ticketing would be great.... and IMO the fines (or bribes) should be heavier as well. None of this 100-400 Baht child's play. Push them up to 10,000-40,000 Baht and you'll see an increase in compliance and increase in the # of police more than happy to regularly cite folks as well.

[andook]

Lemming Run 2007, otherwise known as "Songkraan" has started in earnest already?

Time to leave the country from this increasingly costly debacle of a "celebration".