Songkran’s ‘Seven Dangerous Days’ begin with a spike in road deaths

[MrJ2U]

8 hours ago, Sydebolle said:

As long as this country is run by such an unqualified bunch of clowns ........

The key would be law enFORCEment, not bribe-taking. Excellent example is the tremendous traffic jam upon entering Nong Khai on friendship highway number 2. Some just hand over some cash and drive on while others seem to argue and hence are held up - until softened enough? 

Built in the 50's by the US.  It's still mainly two lanes and in rough shape most of the way despite the constant shoddy repair jobs. 

 

A few slow trucks or an accident can cause traffic jams anytime of the day.

 

With infrastructure like this there is inevitably going to be higher mortality rates.

 

We drove from Khon Kaen to Udon Thani on Monday.  Traffic was light for Songkran.  Pandemic and bad economy definitely a big part.

 

Not much happening in our village.  Most people are infected with the virus including us.

 

Very mild!

 

We even went swimming today.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mittraphap_Road

 

 

 

 

Edited April 12, 2022 by MrJ2U

[Sydebolle]

Well, I arrived in the early 80s and the Mitraphab Highway was a far, very far cry from what it is today. The US poured hundreds of millions of dollars into infrastructure to accommodate their secret war; the bill for the Thai infrastructure went, together with the trillions of the second Indochina war, onto the tax payers account. 
The Thais keep up the good work, even spend some of the highway budget on actual road construction and up keeping and, having driven all over Indochina, I can attest that the Thai road network is the best of 'em all. After the US left, ADB came in and once the Thai government came to money, they maintained, improved and expanded the existing grid. Latter less for up keeping but for the commissioning; most politicians have somewhere on their family tree some construction companies - see the sitting health minister and his little deals.

I was actually more referring to the fact that the carnage over the next seven days is related to law enforcement - ahem the absence of implementing existing rules and regulations - rather than the road grid though. 

[starky]

18 hours ago, HappyExpat57 said:

Every thing I've read shows number of Songkran road deaths are slightly lower than the rest of the year (except, of course 2019-2021).

Spot on. I would hazard a guess maybe all the traffic congestion serves in actually slowing people down a bit.

  Whole thing is a farce same amoi t of drunk drivers on the roads everyday songkran on no. 

[Dumbfounded]

It's their way of culling the population and that's why the police do SFA. I don't think many hiso's travel by car during Songkran