58 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

The WHO does not rely on raw, real-time national tallies. Instead, it extrapolates from historical data, applying statistical modelling to ensure international comparability.

Official global road-fatality statistics typically lag by 18–24 months. For 2025, harmonised WHO figures will not be published until around mid-2026. Compounding this delay, countries differ markedly in how they collect, classify and report road-traffic deaths. Some rely on incomplete civil registration systems, others apply inconsistent injury-coding standards. As a result, direct country-to-country comparisons are not possible without mathematical adjustment.

This is a crucial nuance often overlooked: in many countries, the headline figures are not direct counts from civil registries but estimates. The WHO therefore compiles a modelled time series, correcting for under-reporting and definitional inconsistencies. While imperfect, this approach is the only way to place countries on a genuinely comparable footing.

Viewed through this lens, Thailand currently sits well outside the global top ten. The latest WHO-modelled figure, extrapolated from 2021 data, places Thailand at 25.4 road-traffic deaths per 100,000 population.

Local Thai reporting for 2024 aligns closely with this estimate:

... Road-traffic deaths (2024): ~17,447

... Mid-2024 population: ~71.67 million

... Implied rate: ~24.3 deaths per 100,000 population

In other words, there is no material divergence between the WHO’s modelled comparison (based on 2021) and Thailand’s locally reported 2024 figures. The numbers tell a consistent story.

Do you expect a sudden transformation between 2024 and 2025 ??? or even 2021 and 2025 ???

Absent a radical overhaul of enforcement, infrastructure, vehicle mix and behaviour, the answer is self-evident.

So what are the current stats ?

Until Thai's are taught properly from the start of the learning process and properly tested to obtain a License then nothing will get any better. For most of them it's like a game of Bumper Cars, they are lousy judges of speed and distance too and nobody ever rams it into their heads that Speed Kills. Pedal to the Metal is the order of the driving day and to hell with all other Road Users, they become Maniac Monsters behind the wheel, Give them any stretch of Straight Road and they think it's a Runway to take off on. My Thai Wife has given up driving completely at 60 as she has lost her confidence and says that Thai Drivers have got worse as the years have passed and she is scared now like never before.

57 minutes ago, trainman34014 said:

Until Thai's are taught properly from the start of the learning process and properly tested to obtain a License then nothing will get any better. For most of them it's like a game of Bumper Cars, they are lousy judges of speed and distance too and nobody ever rams it into their heads that Speed Kills. Pedal to the Metal is the order of the driving day and to hell with all other Road Users, they become Maniac Monsters behind the wheel, Give them any stretch of Straight Road and they think it's a Runway to take off on. My Thai Wife has given up driving completely at 60 as she has lost her confidence and says that Thai Drivers have got worse as the years have passed and she is scared now like never before.

Kwilco's going to have a great response to this !!! 🫨

On 1/1/2026 at 4:59 PM, mason 45 said:

and don't forget tail gating at high speed.

isn't that Thai driving priority 101 ?

On 1/1/2026 at 11:57 AM, wil iam not said:

And while driving the 35km home this morning , I passed about 5 'Police Tents' each with one or two men inside, all watching telly or on their phone, with un-helmeted bikes going by, and for sure, many still-drunk drivers. They do eff all.

the popular name Somchai should be replaced with Chuck ! .cause they sure don't give a F*** !

10 hours ago, trainman34014 said:

Until Thai's are taught properly from the start of the learning process and properly tested to obtain a License then nothing will get any better. For most of them it's like a game of Bumper Cars, they are lousy judges of speed and distance too and nobody ever rams it into their heads that Speed Kills. Pedal to the Metal is the order of the driving day and to hell with all other Road Users, they become Maniac Monsters behind the wheel, Give them any stretch of Straight Road and they think it's a Runway to take off on. My Thai Wife has given up driving completely at 60 as she has lost her confidence and says that Thai Drivers have got worse as the years have passed and she is scared now like never before.

I have noticed that at traffic lights, they stop one or two metres behind the stop line, and are usually much slower than me in my old Vigo at starting off.