Highway Death Toll Rises To 148 During First Four Days Of Songkran

[webfact]

Highway death toll rises to 148 during first four days of Songkran

BANGKOK, April 15 -- One hundred forty eight persons were killed and 2,316 injured across Thailand during the first four days of this year’s Songkran festival’s “seven dangerous days,” a senior education ministry official said Friday.

Kamol Rodklai, Deputy Permanent Secretary for Education, told a press conference that there were 2,141 road accidents during the period, ended Thursday.

Statistics compiled by the Road Safety Centre of the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department showed that the number of people killed between Monday-Thursday this

year were about 30 per cent below the corresponding period of last year’s Songkran festival or Thailand’s traditional New Year.

Bangkok recorded most deaths at eight during the four-day period, followed by Suphan Buri and Chiang Mai with seven each.

Most accidents resulted from drinking-and-driving which caused over 45 per cent of the road accidents followed by speed driving and attempted sudden overtaking by motorcyclists.

The Road Safety Centre has warned drivers to take extra care while driving after the Meteorological Department forecast thundershowers and strong winds countrywide. (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2011-04-15

[jhwest]

Why is it only at Songkran called the 7 dangerous days and it is just as dangerous throughout the year, but the death rate much higher I suppose.

What a sad way to lose a life or rather cause others to die

[nowork114]

Yesterday on the way home from Central Rama III i saw two guys on motorcycle colliding with a taxi on Narathiwat / Sathor intersection. The policemen went there, looked on the guy lying on the floor and the other crawling around, put orange cones around, lit up a cigarette and waited for Poh Teck Tung - from the other side of the road I didn't see if the guy was dead or just hurt but the police guy did not care at all - and the taxi driver just sat in the car and didn't even got out ... and of course no helmets...

[jimbeam1]

Yesterday on the way home from Central Rama III i saw two guys on motorcycle colliding with a taxi on Narathiwat / Sathor intersection. The policemen went there, looked on the guy lying on the floor and the other crawling around, put orange cones around, lit up a cigarette and waited for Poh Teck Tung - from the other side of the road I didn't see if the guy was dead or just hurt but the police guy did not care at all - and the taxi driver just sat in the car and didn't even got out ... and of course no helmets...

We hear so much of this, with motorbikes over Songkran. I wonder does the car driver or their Insurance, still have to pay up?

jb1

[naboo]

From some brief internet research I've found that there are roughly 13,000 deaths per year on Thailand's roads. That's 250/week. At 148 in 4 days, we're 5 above the average of 143 on a typical 4 days.

There are two ways of looking at this. Either the massive campaigns with regards to road safety are a huge success and prevent nearly all expected extra Songkran deaths, or at Songkran, there are generally no more or less deaths than at any other time of the year.

Personally, I'm going with the latter and would rather see the money for these campaigns being spent on year round road safety awareness teams going to schools and public places around the country raising awareness of how to drive safely, why wearing helmets and seatbelts is important and how speed kills. Perhaps a free helmet could be given out with every 400 Baht fine for no helmet. Of course, the helmet would only be worth 300Baht as the police need their salary piset, but a 300B helmet is better than your hair for padding.

I went on a speed awareness course in the UK after receiving a speeding ticket. I went to avoid getting points on my licence and instead of paying a fine, I paid the equivalent amount for this course. I wasn't particularly interested but actually found it surprisingly informative and subsequently started driving considerably more sensibly. I'd watched clips of people who'd been paralysed in accidents, interviews with families of people killed by speeding motorists and found out exactly what difference 10mph makes to your stopping distance or speed of impact/% chance of death. Perhaps Thailand could introduce something like this for convictions of speeding, drink driving and helmetlessness.....

[IAMSOBAD]

This country does not value life. They use death to celebrate. The policeman was mad because he had to work and made no profit off of injured victims.

The taxi driver will never be charged.

Drunken Thais and farangs will use water canons to shoot ice water into drivers faces and police will stay dry at the station while people die.

Third World Mentality

[mightyharriss]

Yesterday on the way home from Central Rama III i saw two guys on motorcycle colliding with a taxi on Narathiwat / Sathor intersection. The policemen went there, looked on the guy lying on the floor and the other crawling around, put orange cones around, lit up a cigarette and waited for Poh Teck Tung - from the other side of the road I didn't see if the guy was dead or just hurt but the police guy did not care at all - and the taxi driver just sat in the car and didn't even got out ... and of course no helmets...

We hear so much of this, with motorbikes over Songkran. I wonder does the car driver or their Insurance, still have to pay up?

jb1

Like motorcycles on the expressway like this you mean..... They should be banned during the songkran celebrations

[colinthailand20005]

Yesterday on the way home from Central Rama III i saw two guys on motorcycle colliding with a taxi on Narathiwat / Sathor intersection. The policemen went there, looked on the guy lying on the floor and the other crawling around, put orange cones around, lit up a cigarette and waited for Poh Teck Tung - from the other side of the road I didn't see if the guy was dead or just hurt but the police guy did not care at all - and the taxi driver just sat in the car and didn't even got out ... and of course no helmets...

We hear so much of this, with motorbikes over Songkran. I wonder does the car driver or their Insurance, still have to pay up?

jb1

Like motorcycles on the expressway like this you mean..... They should be banned during the songkran celebrations

Are you sure this is an Expressway? There are many elongated elevated sections of roads that look like this that are not Expressways, for example if you go on Ratchada Rd it goes into Wong Sawang Rd, then Charan Sanit Wong, this picture looks very much like this road and motorbikes are permitted on these sections.

[ding]

Good old alcohol. It gives ya wings, then takes away the sky.

Police should chain the bikes when riders caught withou a helmet on - for the duration of Songkran.

[sirchai]

Why is it only at Songkran called the 7 dangerous days and it is just as dangerous throughout the year, but the death rate much higher I suppose.

What a sad way to lose a life or rather cause others to die

Did anybody check if the injured people died afterwards? Crippled innocent people, where rich ones only had to pay a fine, who caused the accidents.

I mean are there really people who know what they're doing?

So does anybody know who's going to make these statistics?:jap:

[softgeorge]

If thai's had any idea of the road rules and not only knew how to apply them but actually applied them then the toll would be down a lot more. I was driving in Chianat on Thursday when I got "T" boned by an idiot on a motor bike. Had my wife's family in the car including her brother and uncle (both BIB) I Was making a right hand turn and had the indicator on and traffic was passing me down the left side. Proceeded to turn right and thump the idiot comes from behind at a great rate of knots and hits me. Fortunately he wasn't killed but didn't look good was thrown into the back of a ute and taken off to hospital. The BIB turns up and the 1st thing they say to me is "Your drunk, your fault." Was news to me as I hadn't even had a drink in the last couple of days. That was thier total investigation at the scene 'YOUR DRUNK YOUR FAULT." Anyway the brother In Law and wife's Uncle intervened spoke to the local BIB then it was not my fault motorbike should have passed me on the left. All smiles and a shake of the hand by the BIB and we were on our way. Oh and yes the guy will be OK in due course few broken bones and apparently he was not drunk either and said he did wrong.

[mightyharriss]

Yesterday on the way home from Central Rama III i saw two guys on motorcycle colliding with a taxi on Narathiwat / Sathor intersection. The policemen went there, looked on the guy lying on the floor and the other crawling around, put orange cones around, lit up a cigarette and waited for Poh Teck Tung - from the other side of the road I didn't see if the guy was dead or just hurt but the police guy did not care at all - and the taxi driver just sat in the car and didn't even got out ... and of course no helmets...

We hear so much of this, with motorbikes over Songkran. I wonder does the car driver or their Insurance, still have to pay up?

jb1

Like motorcycles on the expressway like this you mean..... They should be banned during the songkran celebrations

Are you sure this is an Expressway? There are many elongated elevated sections of roads that look like this that are not Expressways, for example if you go on Ratchada Rd it goes into Wong Sawang Rd, then Charan Sanit Wong, this picture looks very much like this road and motorbikes are permitted on these sections.

This was DEFINATELY an expressway, I had to pay to get on the thing going from Bangna toward Chaeng Wattana, and NO moterbikes are not permitted here. I've been driving here long enough to know the difference