Songkran Death Toll Way Over Last Year As Millions Return To Bangkok

[Markaew]

So the sexy dancing police offers didn't work!

Have any of their plans worked? The only thing that works is the flow of tea money.

[apetley]

This is the new way they are robbing people - motorbike/scooter following motorbike/scooter. they follow you from five to ten centimetres behind for over 10km - forcing you to go up to speeds of 140km/hr - if you are lucky enough to reach the city they will vanish. if you veer left they veer left if you veer right they veer right. they are doing this I am told in the hope of you having an accident or somehow stop - I don't know how stopping can be achieved unless you get rear ended. once you crash or stop they will rob you and leave you for dead. you can not stop as they are always 5cm to 10cm behind you. You can only increase your speed as they are always so close behind you - you are in fleeing mode. if you see this plate gaw gai saw reu see kaw kuat KRABI *** yamaha 135cc spark - good up to 140km/hr- I can verify this - you may want to make a will if you see this licence plate. there is a new evil here. It is the new tactic of choice to rob people. you may be better of riding a bus than hiring a bike. happy new year farang brothers and sisters. this is a good cautionary warning for your safety. this has been reported to the police today. there are some very evil hearted people out there targeting foreigners who will cause you to crash, leave you for dead and rob you. travel in pairs of scooters/motorbikes to be safe. And I have read that if you die after 24 hours of the accident it is classified as death by natural causes. However every country is entitled to their measuring yard stick. I have known many many Thais dying one week after the accident. Time to sell the scooter.

Not saying it doesn't happen but you have to be pretty desperate or just plain nuts to attempt robbery like that.

In my mispent youth I used to ride my motorbike practically all my spare time. When out with friends I was rear ended twice. Both times stayed on and they fell off.

If I had someone following me that close for any length of time I think I'd be dabbing the brakes. Their front wheel hitting my back wheel means they'll almost certainly be the ones falling off.

[Dibbler]

This years spectacularly bad result despite the zero death campaign shows there is no replacement for effective traffic law enforcement. Change the police mentality of taking advantage of motorists for personal gain to protecting lives and road deaths will come down. Education of road users only works if there is also a risk of getting caught and severely penalised for driving drunk

[Dibbler]

This years spectacularly bad result despite the zero death campaign shows there is no replacement for effective traffic law enforcement. Change the police mentality of taking advantage of motorists for personal gain to protecting lives and road deaths will come down. Education of road users only works if there is also a risk of getting caught and severely penalised for driving drunk

[luckyman]

Note that the Muslim Southern Provinces had no fatal accidents. Shows what consumption of alcohol does to the statistics.

Neither did Chon Buri/Pattaya and they drink there.

......and the most deadly accidents in one province happened in Nakhon Sri Thammarat, according to News papers, and this is also a muslim province...

[travelmann]

You k now I used to say they are idots over Songkran, and then you get the its only a few days brigade, or its just harmless fun or what a sad ole bugger you are etc, well here is my Songkran report.

Drove wife up from BKK to Loei 9 hours car got covered in water/flour/wahetever they use, over the next few days car got more water thrown at it twice the idiots throwing let go of the bucket, one was metal, result two big dents in the doors, took car to car wash result cannot get off the flour water car has to be T cutted and polished and no guarantee it can be removed completely.

I almost ran over at least 2-3 people aimlessly wandering into the road.

Conclusion

Songkran is a F****ng nightmare, mainly played out by irresponsible Wan*ers pissed out of their head with no care or thought for anything or anyone. Total cost to me about 8000 baht.

Thanks you and happy F***king Songkran, the sooner its banned outright the better.

Its used to be sprinkle a bit of water, I saw real hatred in little kids eyes ( aged about 5-6 yrs old) as they hurled with ALL their might the water.

Just harmless fun though............................. time to ban it!!

How can you see hatred in the eyes of a six year old ???

Get a grip.

The might of a six year old is pretty scary though, especially as you flash past at 60 kmph in ton of Toyota..........

And grief beyond grief, the car has to be polished.......

here we go, were you there?? NO, did you see the kids face?? NO, I was, he had hatred in his eyes as he hurled with all his might the water, he wanted to do as much harm as he could to any passing car or bike, in fact they prefer bikes as there is a good chance they can get one down.

Oh yeah for the record I was driving at WALKING PACE

Can you tell the difference between dtermination and hatred? If it is hatred the look will most likely persevere after the water was thrown. If it was detetrmination then the serious look will be replaced by a laugh after the water is thrown especially if somebody fell of their bike as a result. Perhaps when you drove through at walking pace people could see the miserable look on your face and the crowds pulled out the " special paste made from powdered glass ( you must know about this surely it is often combined by letting go of the bucket when throwing it) and reserved for miserable old tossers who can't relax and have a bit of harmless fun once a year. I spent last week in BKK and travelled down to Rayong and saw only people having fun ( with a bit of mischief thrown in). I don't know how you managed to see hatred in a young child's face but I would suggest that it was some kind of a reflection.of your mood. If you got such a good look at a water thrower's face were you on the wrong side of the road or were you the passenger? If you were driving and drove at walking pace through mobs of water throwers whilst looking daggers at them I would say that you had your car scratched deliberately somnamnaa. Next year try smiling and get in the spirit and see what the reaction is you might be pleasantly surprised

Miserable old tossers eh, stay away from that mirror matey

[drdoom6996]

"Miracle Year", "Amazing Thailand"

[OZEMADE]

Every year is the same with more or less deaths. It will never change, the celebration of Songkran, the Thai New Year, the start of the Rainy Season.

No amount of winging on this forum will change that, your flogging a dead horse.

[drdoom6996]

6 year olds are more dangerous than most adults, expat or Thai. Thier parents don't supervise them. See how many of the deaths are children after this cluster f$#k is over.

By the way they started throwing water in Pattaya Last Sunday. And it won't stop until dark on Thursday the 19th. Pain in the a$s.

[drdoom6996]

Come to Pattaya and see the hatred for yourself.

And by the way they started throwing water in Pattaya on Sunday and don't stop until dark on Thursday the 19th.

[kruangfaifar]

I was in Pattaya yesterday but didn't see any hatred. Same in Bangkok and Ban Chang

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[Perry2010]

How about a road safety campain 24/7, not just lip service during holidays. How about the police actually doing their jobs and enforcing the law. How about requiring that drivers actually take driving lessons and actually pass a drivers test. None of this slip the police 100 baht to ignore the infraction or slip the test examiner 1000 baht to get the license nonsense.

Nothing will change until all the corruption stops. So not in my lifetime.

Nothing will change until all the corruption stops. So not in my lifetime? I don't know what country you are from but corruption runs rampant in all countries some just hide it better than others. Thailand's corruption is open like Australia 40 years ago, Australia just covers it up better these days. As long as there are politicians and police in any country in the world there will be corruption. So not in anyones lifetime will corruption stop in Thailand, or any other country

[Tanaka]

I may be wrong about this, but I wouldn't be surprised if changing Songkran from Fri-Tues to Fri-Mon may have made it even less safe for travellers. With an extra day upcountry, drivers might have had a chance to rest up (and sober up).

Or have one more day to drink.

[OZEMADE]

I may be wrong about this, but I wouldn't be surprised if changing Songkran from Fri-Tues to Fri-Mon may have made it even less safe for travellers. With an extra day upcountry, drivers might have had a chance to rest up (and sober up).

Or have one more day to drink.

Death Toll for Songkran not finished yet as still have about 3 days to go in Chonburi.

So their figures will rise substancially by the 20th, when it should be all over.

[crazydrummerpauly]

There are about 12000 traffic deaths in Thailand each year. 250 per week or so. Songkran deaths are not any worse than any other week when you figure kilometers travelled.

Interesting take on it - and in a way actually more depressing - the casualty-rate becomes normalised instead of being tied to Songkran's extremes. In a rough-and-ready way, i've always tried to warn new drivers in LOS that it is around 5 times more dangerous here than in e.g., the UK, where annual deaths have tended to be around 3,000 - but your figures put it at 4 times, which is fair enough. Furthermore, your adjustment for 'kilometers travelled' could be beefed up even more by a measurement of 'distance travelled X number of people on the move'. If that number comes out at way above the norm for human-movements around the road system during non-festival periods, then is it conceivable that Songkran might actually turn out to be 'safer' ? Nah...crazy ?

[kruangfaifar]

Drove down to tak and back to Chiang mai no problems no wrecks just a lot of water, the loss of life is a shame but then again I am here for the mai bpen rai life style and if people where honest that is the reason many of you came here as well but now you want it to be like home. Get a grip no nanny state here unless you are rich and famous

The mai bpen rai lifestyle is great? So you wouldn't complain if a loved one got killed/maimed by a drunk driver? Some rules are necessary (like a ban on drink-driving), but I agree not to the level of nanny states like some countries in the west. There can be compromise.

Its a Bit like Moving next to a Golf Course and complaining because you GET smacked with a Ball .

Yes , there is a huge element of Danger on the roads no doubt ..But you knew that when you came here , you must be escaping from something or you wouldn't live here ..there must be something drawing you to Thailand ??

You cant just move in ..say Great ..Ive been here for 15 years ..Now this is wrong ..that is wrong ..They have to change etc etc etc etc

" They " dont have to do anything , and Yep , its a dangerous , unregulated place in many respects . But many of us dont WANT it to be the UK , USA .. or anywhere else ..we came to get away from that . The answer is obvious ...

Everything Cannot be perfect .. This is NOT Europe .. and thank Buddah for that !

Teaching people how to drive has nothing to do with turning the country into a nanny state though. A road is not a personal domain, and whilst it is possible to have an accident only harm yourself, this is often not the case. I had a discussion with someone who asked me, if he wanted to ride my bike at 150km, is it anyone else's business? My answer was plainly that the road wasn't his own personal domain, and as such he should go and build his own road and ride to his heart's content.

Just because life appears to be cheap here, sometimes people need to be saved from their own selfishness and stupidity because the effect of their actions has effects way beyond their own personal harm.

I had my Songkran where I always do in the centre of my local town with friends, all very well and good other than a group of teenage tatooed bikees next to us, who have been there year on year, but this year there was obviously a lot of drugs going on. This in and of itself wasn't the issue, but the repeated coming and going at 40 to 50km/h up the wrong side of the road, weaving between kids throwing water finally came to a point when some idiot came roaring up the wrong side of the road and nearly took out mine and about 6 other kids who would obviously not be thinking to look the wrong way up the road.

A little arguement ensued and admittedly he apologised, picked up his biker chick on the back of his bike, tried to smoke out the tyres and pull of with a wheelie. At which point his chick, fell off the back of the bike and nearly spread her brains all over the road. It was like something out of a loonie tunes cartoon. The sheer irresponsible, thoughtless, macho crap was so stupid, initially I laughed, and then we proceeded to scoop the poor girl off the road, whilst the other 50 tatooed, high idiots bounced around to their music.

Just all too much sometimes.

I am sorry to say but the bikers are the good guys in this story. The guy who aologised to you is the good guy and is the real man in this case The guy avoids hitting your kids who have wandered unsupervised or monitored into an area where you knew the bikers were high and doing stunts yet you still want to publicly slag off the guy that didn'tt hurt any body and still apologised to you in front of all his mates. That's bad karma that is

Edited April 18, 2012 by kruangfaifar

[otherstuff1957]

There are about 12000 traffic deaths in Thailand each year. 250 per week or so. Songkran deaths are not any worse than any other week when you figure kilometers travelled.

Interesting take on it - and in a way actually more depressing - the casualty-rate becomes normalised instead of being tied to Songkran's extremes. In a rough-and-ready way, i've always tried to warn new drivers in LOS that it is around 5 times more dangerous here than in e.g., the UK, where annual deaths have tended to be around 3,000 - but your figures put it at 4 times, which is fair enough. Furthermore, your adjustment for 'kilometers travelled' could be beefed up even more by a measurement of 'distance travelled X number of people on the move'. If that number comes out at way above the norm for human-movements around the road system during non-festival periods, then is it conceivable that Songkran might actually turn out to be 'safer' ? Nah...crazy ?

12,000 is actually a fairly low figure, I've seen 14,000 mentioned (about 36 deaths per day)! Although Songkran seems like a crazy and dangerous time, I suspect that the average speed at which people can drive is actually lower than it normally is, so maybe accidents are less likely to be fatal.

[oldsailor35]

How about a road safety campain 24/7, not just lip service during holidays. How about the police actually doing their jobs and enforcing the law. How about requiring that drivers actually take driving lessons and actually pass a drivers test. None of this slip the police 100 baht to ignore the infraction or slip the test examiner 1000 baht to get the license nonsense.

Nothing will change until all the corruption stops. So not in my lifetime.

Nothing will change until all the corruption stops. So not in my lifetime? I don't know what country you are from but corruption runs rampant in all countries some just hide it better than others. Thailand's corruption is open like Australia 40 years ago, Australia just covers it up better these days. As long as there are politicians and police in any country in the world there will be corruption. So not in anyones lifetime will corruption stop in Thailand, or any other country

YES. But when they are found out in Australia, they will definately go to jail.