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Thailand’s dangerous road status confirmed – again!


webfact

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8 hours ago, webfact said:

Types of vehicles in accidents:

– Pickups (37%)

– Private and public vehicles (27%)

– Motorcycles (20%)

– Trucks with at least 10 wheels (8%)

– Six-wheel trucks (6%)

– Vans (2%)

Oh look, agricultural utility vehicles make up the largest percentage!

 

What a surprise. 

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Yes I love it…blaming pedestrians who cut off drivers b/c they are trying to cross the road….what about educating and training drivers that pedestrians have right of way?

 

so first look for them and allow them to cross by stopping…I absolutely hate the blinders that drivers have about disrespecting pedestrians…there is no relationship that exists between drivers and pedestrians outside of fear….so pedestrians avoid crosswalks, intersections etc and respond by darting across anywhere on the road by judging when cars are coming…very dangerous and unnecessary practice

 

surprised by usa 3rd…after driving the last 20 years here and going back to the usa every year, it is like night and day….

 

it is a pleasure and relaxing to drive in the usa b/c I know exactly what to expect…no tailgating, no wrong way drivers, pedestrian/bike cyclist right of way, no passing in the slow/emergency lane, rarely red light runners, and most of all, most people moving at the speed limit vs in thailand too many slow drivers AND too many fast drivers…

 

biggest difference - system driving vs individual driving

 

let me add that I would say 75-80% drivers in thailand are okay but when you have 20-25% bad drivers disrespecting the rules of the road daily, one has dangerous driving conditions every single day 

Edited by cardinalblue
Destrian
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20 minutes ago, Kaopad999 said:

These statistics do not  surprise me in the slightest.  It's nearly ALWAYS the idiots in pickups in this country.

I just wonder why? 

The kind of person that drives one of them fast, is a mere peasant with low-self esteem. 

 

They do tend to graduate to Accords and Camrys later on in life though and if they come into a bit money but they are still peasants.

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This morning I was visiting Isaan and was driving to my project. The road a head was blocked by a 10 wheeler dropping fill for the road expansion ... all cars had stopped and I was probably the 6th car in line. The truck move off and traffic started to move. Then another oncoming 10 wheeler came in our direction and was going too fast ... suddenly it swerved across the road in front of us ... maybe 5 cars ahead and hit the new electric pylon, turning on its side in the ditch .... Luckily no other car was hit .... had I been 10 seconds earlier, who knows as the traffic was already moving ...... it was quite a scene.

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No surprise here at all as the average Thai  who drives fast just has no idea how long it takes to stop a fast moving vehicle or what action needed in the event of a skid of slide.

The pick up manufacturers are also at fault here as the ability with modern engines to travel at high speeds are certainly not matched by their braking ability in particular on the cheaper models.

Speeding at 170KPH in a pick up or car that still has only drum brakes on the rear is a classic example

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Thailand is an abysmal place to drive, regardless of how poor the survey quality is. However I have worked in a number of asian countries and their driving strategies weren't any better than Thailand, with similar road outcomes. So a number of countries could be sitting in equal second.

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2 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

And the sheer number of motorcyclists many of whom are not wearing helmets. 

75% of road fatalities in Thailand are motorcyclists.

 

Thus: IF Thailand had a better handle on training and education of motorcyclists inroads could be made. 

 

The US has it right with driver education in schools. 

In our schools we are taught so many different subjects, yet key life skills are not taught.

Subjects such water safety, life saving and first aid skills are not taught.

 

Pretty much everyone will grow up to drive a car or ride a motorcycle...  Adding road safety to a national syllabus could make a significant benefit to Thailands road safety stats, but not only Thailand else where in many of our home countries too. 

 

IF helmet laws were taken seriously (as seriously as the mask regulations !) and were effectively policed, the stats would be brought down significantly. As an estimate I would guess that at least 1/3rd of motorcycle accidents result in avoidable death simply through the lack of wearing proper-helmet (not a plastic big-c jobby which should be banned). 

 

Ultimately until road safety is taken seriously by those in positions of decision making and policy impacting power nothing will be done... And by 'policy impacting power’, I mean the power to impact policy within police forces forcing them to effectively police their road using population. 

 

When was the last time we saw a police bike or car pull over a motorcyclist for not wearing a helmet, jumping a light, riding dangerously etc etc...  (not road blocks)....

 

Perhaps ultimately, those in positions of power don’t care because those at greatest risk are those poor feckless souls occupying the lower rungs of the socio-economic ladder - a sad blight on the mindset of the nation. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a tacit agreement between government and the Thai population : we don’t care about ourselves so neither does the government. Carry on…

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18 minutes ago, peter zwart said:

There we go. The pick up boys that think the are driving a F1 car and their name is Max Verstappen. Oh and always treat you on a nice smoke plum.

They’re actually pretty useless at driving fast other than a straight line. I’ve frequently been tail gated on the straight but because I’ve done many track days I’m a much better judge of cornering speed, turn in  ,apex and exit point,so find that they’ve dropped behind while without gunning it I’ve just smoothly held the correct line while they unnecessarily brake ,saw away at the wheel and use the incorrect line. Then they desperately floor it to catch up…until the next bend! ???? 

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8 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

Disappointing as Thailand always want to be the first in the world.. A second place is not good.. 

If they included deaths in the hospital from accident they would be number one

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9 hours ago, ikke1959 said:

Disappointing as Thailand always want to be the first in the world.. A second place is not good.. 

I’m finding it hard to believe that Thai drivers are bad or dangerous .. They don’t drink and drive because they know they will spill it “;0)

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This is nonsense!

 

I just wonder what Zutobi think they are doing. All they use is the same old stats used by everyone else and make some illogical conclusions.

 

There are several ways of looking at statistics and Zutobi don't seem to even start.

At the end of the day, they use the one single cliches stat that everyone falls back on - i.e. deaths per 100k of population... these are not the only star used in coming to conclusions about road safety. Most people choose to ignore things like serious and minor injuries and the actual number of collisions

you can also look at....

  • Serious Injuries per 1 million inhabitants
  • Minor injuries per 1 million inhabitants
  • Deaths per 10 billion vehicle-KM
  • Deaths per 100,000 registered vehicles
  • Registered vehicles per 1000 inhabitants

It also is not clear from the article which govern spokesman is speaking - South Africa or Thailand.

 

In the end their conclusion appears to be 32,000 deaths means Thai roads are second most "dangerous" - this is a purely subjective term.

It ignores the 80% plus of of vulnerable road user deaths and ignores precisely what they mean by "dangerous" and to whom.

 

It also over looks the possibility that in  the most "dangerous" part might actually the emergency services. i.e. Thailand has marginally more collisions than th UK but the results are more deadly.

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9 hours ago, Dmaxdan said:

It is mind boggling that straight roads without a slope prove to so challenging!

In Thailand it's not so mind boggling.  Thailand has some of the worst roads I've ever driven on.  As a former road builder, I honestly don't think they know how to build them or maintain their roads.  I've driven perfectly straight roads, doing 10/15 kph under posted speed and almost lost it because of a pothole the size of a dog that you couldn't see because of the dip in the road.  6 months later, and the pothole was still there... along with chewed up grass to the side.

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1 hour ago, natway09 said:

No surprise here at all as the average Thai  who drives fast just has no idea how long it takes to stop a fast moving vehicle or what action needed in the event of a skid of slide.

The pick up manufacturers are also at fault here as the ability with modern engines to travel at high speeds are certainly not matched by their braking ability in particular on the cheaper models.

Speeding at 170KPH in a pick up or car that still has only drum brakes on the rear is a classic example

Not sure where your coming from on this one.  After having read disks on a truck, give me drums everyday.  And it's not like the rear breaks do the majority of the stopping.  Drove around for a month with no rear breaks without ever a stopping issue.  And as for engine power vs breaking ability, the one thing I hate about Thai trucks and cars is how underpowered they are compared to what I'm used to back home, same car, same model.  Your argument should be thank god they aren't as powerful as North American trucks.

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These rankings need explanation.

 

How does Armenia get 9th with 7.35 overall score when 17.1 per 100,000 die there? Compared with Israel in 10th, with just 4.2 deaths per 100K? Over four times the rate of death. Armenia also outranks countries with deaths per 100,000s in the 2.x and 3.x range! That is a seven times higher death rate in Armenia that Switzerland, ranked 13. 

 

It makes sense to have a basket of factors, but deaths / 100,000 and/or deaths / million car-km have to carry more weight in the aggregation.

 

Thailand is #1 in the deaths/100K category, so they can claim a win in the most important category ????

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8 hours ago, VincentRJ said:

What I find amazing is that the USA is the third worst. South Africa is the worst. Thailand is the 2nd worst and the USA is the third worst. Crikey!

Have you ever driven in a big American city?  Quite dangerous.

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