56 dead, 729 injured in first two days of Songkran travel - 17,000 nabbed for no licenses

[473geo]

5 minutes ago, AMFWolfie said:

So farangs not throwing water, bars closed, little alcohol consumed by farangs yet still the carnage continues year on year...makes you wonder why we feel penalised!!!

 

Ignorance of the Thai tradition but good for fun

 

We had a large family songran gathering yesterday, gentle respectful water pouring from children, grandchildren, for their parents and grandparents well meant and well received. A pleasure to watch.

 

 

[Surelynot]

1 minute ago, 473geo said:

Ignorance of the Thai tradition but good for fun

 

We had a large family songran gathering yesterday, gentle respectful water pouring from children, grandchildren, for their parents and grandparents well meant and well received. A pleasure to watch.

 

 

Same here....about 50 present....no masks......half were visiting from Bangkok......and all sharing water and cup from the same tub..........retired to a safe distance and went home early.

[KannikaP]

47 minutes ago, 4MyEgo said:

That's about 5% according to my calculations"

What is 5% of what please?

[johnarth]

out of all that is written here only one account needs to be looked at thank you "  Excel "  your report is spot on

[berrec]

[Tubulat]

4 hours ago, Paul Knight said:

If the insurance companies demanded to see a Valid Driving licence before insurance given, this would cut down that number 

I think when you claimed a damage, you'll have to show a driver license, isn't?

Also when you buy a car, do you have to show a driver license?

[Ralf001]

5 burned to death in a bus that caught fire after a rear tire burst.

 

Terrible way to die.

 

R.I.P.

[bougnat]

For a thai, the gris-gris of the monk and the talisman protects more than the helmet, and to change that ..... good luck!

[Tubulat]

1 hour ago, dogfish180 said:

The issue is that they don't wear helmets and most are kids. The police have zero interest in enforcing any laws. Vietnam for example has way more motorcycles than Thailand, but 99% of riders wear helmets and have a licence that they gained in a test. The police their strictly enforce the law. As such Vietnam have far less road deaths compared to Thailand. So the motorcycle argument falls a little flat I'm afraid.

The different is...Vietnam is a communist country with strict laws an people wh o understand this.

[Chriss77]

I've got an idea, how 'bout upping the highway speed limit to 120, then kick back and watch the results, instead of starting from appropriate ground roots driver training and licensing.......

[Tubulat]

1 hour ago, Surelynot said:

...and yet it could be solved at a stroke.......impound the car......one month to pay up (with your license) or the car is sold to cover all costs.

99% of the cars are financed, do you think they care about it?

[Markus Rider]

Typically between 350 and 400 people are killed in road accidents in Thailand during the Songkran holidays.

 

.... And 1 person dies from Corona in the same period...... Probably several suicides due to unemployment.... 

 

Is there a possible mental mistake... 

 

[Kerryd]

Fact, there are more (registered) motorcycles on the roads here than (registered) cars and light pick-ups combined. Unlike most Western countries where motorcycles make up a small percentage of the overall number of vehicles on the roads.

56 dead in 2 days is actually a significant reduction, when you consider that they usually average (pre-covid) about 60 dead - per day. And usually during Songkran and New Years, the daily toll is much higher than the average.

(And keep in mind they only count those who die at the scene. Those who die enroute to the hospital or at the hospital don't count. Unlike some place like, for instance, Canada where if someone dies from their injuries within 30 days of having an accident, it's counted towards the overall stats.)

If they were to start handing out significant fines and started impounding vehicles, it would, eventually, start making a difference. Driver training courses at the schools, especially in the rural areas, would also, eventually, make a difference. Especially when you see all those kids, many of them not even in their early teens, riding scooters all over the place.

The OP didn't mention drunk driving but the linked article mentions that about 24% of the total number of accidents did involve drinking and driving, but speeding was the main cause, accounting for over 34% of all accidents.

"The most common cause of accidents was speeding 34.45%, drinking and driving 24.37%. Vehicles with the highest accidents were 87.12% motorcycles, most of them on direct routes 58.26%, Department of Highways roads 39.94%, road in SAO / Village 41.18% range." 

They don't mention age/gender, but I wonder how many of the 17,000 without licenses were underage (and how many of the accidents involved underage drivers). 

Over 1,900 checkpoints set up and over 330,000 vehicles/drivers inspected. But sadly, once the holiday is over, everything will revert back to "normal".

Until what, New Years Eve ? Probably.

[TheFishman1]

I just saw on TV the Chinese Vaccine is not very good I guess protect him from the virus go figure

[bullseye66]

48 minutes ago, Markus Rider said:

Typically between 350 and 400 people are killed in road accidents in Thailand during the Songkran holidays.

 

.... And 1 person dies from Corona in the same period...... Probably several suicides due to unemployment.... 

 

Is there a possible mental mistake... 

 

Correct.

[Ralf001]

57 minutes ago, Chriss77 said:

I've got an idea, how 'bout upping the highway speed limit to 120, then kick back and watch the results, instead of starting from appropriate ground roots driver training and licensing.......

 

The OP mentions 87% of accidents are motorcycle (I assume scooters).... doubt raising the speed limit on highways will change that number very much.

[SupermarineS6B]

Hilarious....... A bigger death toll than Thailands losses in both world wars just on the roads in a couple of days and the whole country's shut down and wallowing towards the rocks for 80 odd C19 deaths over a year.......

Is it only me, because i can smell a big smelly rat......... ( Rodent that is )  

[Henricus]

12 hours ago, RichardColeman said:

That's absolutely staggering. If they rolled that out over a year, it would mean about 25% of the Thai populace in the driving age category would be facing prosecution for 11,000,000 driving offences every year.

Driving age in Thailand is from 8 years on 5555

[Trevor Collins]

19 hours ago, Excel said:

Lemmings on holiday

Every day is a lemming holiday in Thailand. 

[KhaoYai]

22 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

and 17,025 did not have driving licenses.

The blame for which lies squarely with the police/government.

 

Every year, sometimes on multiple occasions, announcements are made about toughening up this and changing that.  The reality is that no amount of new laws or increased punishments will change anything unless they are enforced.

 

Someone mentioned hoping that offenders had not been allowed to carry on their way with just a citation in their pocket.  I'm afraid its far worse than that - on most occasions there is no citation and its an entirely different piece of paper that goes into a different pocket.

 

Taking for example, the issue of not wearing a crash helmet, I used to think that people continually and repeatedly broke that law because the fines were so low. However, I had a conversation about it with my wife - I pointed out to her that in the UK, whilst a very small number of people are caught not wearing a helmet, most people wouldn't dare do that, the same goes for driving without a licence.  The fines for such an offence are much higher in the UK , they cannot be paid directly to a police officer, you certainly would not be allowed to continue on your way without a helmet and if you failed to pay the fine, the penalty would escalate - even to the point of prison.

 

Her reply was that of course 'fines' are low but considering the fact that so many are young riders to whom even a 100 baht fine is actually quite a lot, its more about a lack of respect. She was talking about a lack of respect for the law that stems from the fact that the 'fines' are not actually fines, they are donations, donations to a system that is corrupt from the lowest level upwards. I totally get that, how can you be expected to respect the law when the people handing out the so called 'fines' are breaking the law themselves?

 

The fact that during this short 'campaign' over 17,000 people were caught without a licence suggests to me that 17,000 is just the tip of a very large iceberg. Again, a law that it seems more often than not is not properly enforced.  The norm in Thailand is that you are asked to produce your licence and if you don't have one, you simply say you left it at home - a 200 baht 'fine' is 'issued', you pay and go on your way.

Edited April 13, 2021 by KhaoYai

[Surelynot]

3 hours ago, bougnat said:

For a thai, the gris-gris of the monk and the talisman protects more than the helmet, and to change that ..... good luck!

To be fair they work....right up until the very moment they don't.

[Surelynot]

3 hours ago, Tubulat said:

99% of the cars are financed, do you think they care about it?

....how do you think finance works?.......you lose the car and don't have to pay the finance company ?????????????

[prakhonchai nick]

3 minutes ago, Surelynot said:

To be fair they work....right up until the very moment they don't.

Of course - even a monk or a talisman have a day off or are too drunk to assist when the need arises! None of the deities are ever around when needed even though from childhood one is promised they will be.

[Chriss77]

3 hours ago, Ralf001 said:

 

The OP mentions 87% of accidents are motorcycle (I assume scooters).... doubt raising the speed limit on highways will change that number very much.

Yeah true mate. We can still pick the driver(road user) training as an issue that needs much deserved attention.

[Hamselv2]

56 dead in 2 days!!, nothing special about that, the last couple of years there has been around 22.000 dead in traffic each year, that's equal to 60 dead each day!!, so in fact the amount of dead has been reduced.... or do I miss something here?

[ParkerN]

Just now, bougnat said:

For a thai, the gris-gris of the monk and the talisman protects more than the helmet, and to change that ..... good luck!

The hardest things to change retrospectively are the things learned (or taught) earliest. The Christian monks knew this well, it was the beginnings of Sunday School and much else besides: "Give me a child for for his first seven years and I'll give you the man".

[Tubulat]

1 hour ago, Surelynot said:

....how do you think finance works?.......you lose the car and don't have to pay the finance company ?????????????

So what? It is not Europe for example where they can go until the end, including your house.

In Thailand they smile and don't care, how else did they get that abbrevation LOS?

[Surelynot]

2 minutes ago, Tubulat said:

So what? It is not Europe for example where they can go until the end, including your house.

In Thailand they smile and don't care, how else did they get that abbrevation LOS?

Might get myself a Range Rover.......

Edited April 13, 2021 by Surelynot

[QPRFC]

SongKandy is always a great time to pick up a secondhand bike cheaply....one not so careful previous owner 

[Truth Will Set You Free]

On 4/12/2021 at 5:55 PM, snoop1130 said:

Police said 1,916 checkpoints inspected 330,653 vehicles. 

 

Of the vehicles inspected 61,702 drivers face prosecution, with 15,661 found to not be wearing helmets and 17,025 did not have driving licenses.

Prosecution for what charges? I haven't seen one check point since the pandemic last year. Not even when I travel to/from Bangkok and Chonburi stopping anyone. So these numbers don’t add up. 
 

No wear helmets; 15+ is not even near the number they can get on a daily basic if they do the job daily. Do you know how much money money this is? 

 

No driving licenses; do you know how much money they can get for the motorbikes they took from these people for driving illegal and sold at auctions? 
 

When will they realize, they can start a retirement program if they protect and serve. Yet they rather let people die on the roads and claim they don’t make enough money or doing nothing.

 

The age 50 and above! There that many old Thai out there killing themself? NOT! It’s the young folks. Thaivisa got this translated wrong.