German Tourist Killed By Hit-and-run Driver In Pattaya

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Government seeks to reduce New Year's road victim toll by 5%

BANGKOK, Dec 26 (TNA) -- The Thai government has targeted reducing the number of road accident victims during the upcoming New Year's holidays at five per cent below last year, said Anucha Mokhaves, director-general of the national Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department.

The number of fatalities during last New Year's holidays stood at 367, said Mr Anucha, adding that his department will establish a centre to oversee safety and assist road victims between December 28 and January 4.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban, who is responsible for national security affairs, has assigned both the interior and public health ministries as major agencies supervising traffic safety during the period, Mr Anucha said.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said while presiding over the 2009 National Disaster Prevention Day ceremony, held at Bangkok's Dusit Zoo, that members of the public should be alert in preventing accidents as the country has lost more than Bt200 billion annually in the past on accidents.

-- Tan Network 2009/12/26

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The United Nations declared the years 2011-2020 as the "Decade of Action for Road Safety" last November in Moscow, with the goal of reducing the number of people killed on the roads by 50 per cent.

Thailand also has set a target for reducing its traffic death rate by half within the next 10 years.

The Cabinet declared road safety as a national agenda in September, but it appears it will be hard for Thailand to reach such a high goal, according to a road-safety expert.

"The government announced its policy and master plan to start dealing with road accidents, but how can they reach their goal? Having only policy but not providing a special budget and resources to initi?ate or run road-safety projects is not enough," said Thanapong Jinvong, programme manager of the Road Safety Group Thailand (RSG) of the National Health Foundation.

In a meeting with Nation Multimedia Group reporters, he sought their assistance to raise people's awareness and encourage the government to act on its policies.

Currently, around 1.2 million people die and 50 million people are injured in road accidents worldwide each year.

Thailand's total death toll was over 10,000 killed last year, or 31-33 people daily. This daily figure doubled during New Year and Songkran celebration periods, to 50-60 people per day, according to RSG.

He said the government also claimed another near-future goal would be to reduce the ratio of road accident fatalities per 100,000 people - from the present figure of 17.7 killed per 100,000 population, to 14.15 by 2012.

"The number of traffic police officers - only 12,000 - is not enough to supervise motorists, especially during New Year and Songkran celebration periods. Police have a Bt3.6-billion budget for traffic officers to enforce the laws, but only Bt300 million goes towards operational costs to buy necessary tools.

That is not enough to buy hi-tech tools for traffic police at 1,450 stations countrywide."

"The total Bt800 billion budget in the government's Thai Khemkhaeng action plan is not paid directly to its road-safety policy," Thanapong said.

The Interior Ministry's booming campaign to set up many checkpoints nationwide during New Year and Songkran festivals was ineffective, because police and volunteers worked at the checkpoints mostly during daytime. Figures show most people died in road accidents at night.

Thanapong urged the media to report road accident news more widely than they are doing now. He asked them to investigate the real cause of fatal accidents. He said the media only reported what had happened, how much damage was caused and the cause of the accident concluded in the initial police report, which usually stated the driver dozed off or was negligent.

"After police concluded their official road-accident reports, less than 1 per cent were found to have been caused by drivers dozing off. Perhaps, accidents are [more often] caused by risky roads or below-standard vehicles," he said.

He wanted reporters to seek deeper information on fatal accident cases, reflect what is the real cause, and tell people which state agencies must take responsibility, in order to boost public awareness and encourage agencies to take more action on road safety to protect Thai people.

-- The Nation 2009/12/27

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