Police Kick Off New Year Road Safety Campaign

[snoop1130]

 

BANGKOK (NNT) - The Royal Thai Police kicked off the annual seven-day New Year’s road safety campaign on Wednesday (Dec. 28), offering 10,000 baht awards for the best footage of traffic offenses.

 

Following the launch of the New Year traffic safety center, National Police Chief Pol Gen Damrongsak Kittiprapas said as many as 50,000 police personnel would be deployed nationally to enforce traffic laws between December 29 and January 4.

 

The national police chief estimated that the exodus from Bangkok, involving as many as 7.3 million vehicles, would peak on Wednesday and Thursday and that return journeys would peak the following week on Monday and Tuesday.

 

According to Pol Gen Damrongsak, officers have been tasked with enforcing speed limits and targeting drunk drivers as well as those who fail to wear seatbelts or safety helmets.

 

The public has also been invited to submit videos of traffic violations, with the seven best submissions receiving a prize of 10,000 baht from the police. Entries can be submitted to JS100 station and FM91 Trafficpro.

 

The police have also set up over 3,700 checkpoints throughout the country to facilitate and expedite New Year’s Eve traffic.

 

Source: https://thainews.prd.go.th/en/news/detail/TCATG221229114023125

 

-- © Copyright NNT 2022-12-29

 

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[findlay13]

"And the beat goes on, And the beat goes on." Good old song

[kwilco]

Just a litany of ignorance.

firstly they are doing massive numbers of checkpoints - these have been shown not to work - but the numbers of police involved in them actually REDUCES the amount of officers monitoring traffic for road safety.

Secondly the death are over this period is usually slightly lower than the yearly average - this just shows that they are not making any difference at all.

 

Then they claim to be banning commercial vehicles - do they seriously not know they have been banned for the past 30 years of so....and the lack of commercial traffic is probably the only reason for a reduction in deaths,

 

Until the RTP get trained in REAL road safety there will be no significant change in the death rate.

It is not helped by the archaic concept of concentrating on "bad drivers" - this is not the root cause of road deaths - it is the overall driving environment that is created by successive governments who have turned down international wisdom preferring to wallow in their own ignorance,

[lujanit]

5 hours ago, kwilco said:

Just a litany of ignorance.

firstly they are doing massive numbers of checkpoints - these have been shown not to work - but the numbers of police involved in them actually REDUCES the amount of officers monitoring traffic for road safety.

BIB are too busy looking at their phones to do any meaningful monitoring of the traffic.

[kwilco]

40 minutes ago, lujanit said:

BIB are too busy looking at their phones to do any meaningful monitoring of the traffic.

There are simply no properly trained traffic police in Thailand. They don't know what to look for or how to look for it. They simply do a couple of checks that their bosses have picked out (of a hat)

[Rhys]

Travel safe all..

[HuskerDo2]

"The public has also been invited to submit videos of traffic violations, with the seven best submissions receiving a prize of 10,000 baht"...... This should cause quite a few more traffic deaths from idiots standing in traffic taking video. Incredible stupidity.

[mikebell]

I saw three cops in Pattaya yesterday. (I didn't know there were that many in the force!)  They were standing chatting on the corner of TukCom all but blocking the entry with their motor bikes.  They looked thoroughly miffed when I indicated I wished to use that bit of road space!

[Mr Meeseeks]

4 hours ago, kwilco said:

There are simply no properly trained traffic police in Thailand. They don't know what to look for or how to look for it. They simply do a couple of checks that their bosses have picked out (of a hat)

I would add to this also that they are simply not interested, they didn't join the force for this, they joined to make money and so they would command respect in uniform. 

 

The main goals are to self-enrich through corruption, bribery and extortion. 

[jacko45k]

Yeah, they did last year too.....yet 2,700 traffic accidents were reported across Thailand, killing 333 people and injuring 2,672 others..

[herfiehandbag]

Just outside the village I live in there is a busy "T" junction.

 

Once again they have set up a blue tent. In previous years they have set up in the forecourt of a wholesale booze shop, but I notice this year they are on a patch of waste ground opposite.

 

One good move is to set up a long row of cones inside red and white painted tyres along the centre of the roads either side of the junction - since a major cause of accidents is overtaking at the junction this may help.

 

However, it is noticeable that due to the far more "and hoc" nature of the tent this year, no electricity and therefore no internet or coffee, the tent is manned solely by a couple of the local police volunteers - who as far as I know have no real powers.

 

 

[kwilco]

9 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

I would add to this also that they are simply not interested, they didn't join the force for this, they joined to make money and so they would command respect in uniform. 

 

The main goals are to self-enrich through corruption, bribery and extortion. 

It is one of the keystones of good road safety that you have an effective police force dedicated to road safety - this would require an almost constitutional reform of the police.

There is actually no reason that any police force really needs to be involved in road safety at all - a totally separate body could be created.but that's another side issue.

apart from reporting road law violations the "police" need to measure and calibrate EVERY road accident so the real causes are known, categorised and added to a comprehensive range of statistics. Countries with th lowest death rates all do this - since about 2019 Thailand has increased te stats they gathered but if you compare them to the UK or other European countries the Thai effort is risible.

 

can't achieve any of that  from a checkpoint.......

Edited December 30, 2022 by kwilco