Trailer brings down part of bridge
The Nation


A pickup truck is crushed under a fallen beam of a pedestrian bridge after it was hit by a trailer truck carrying a huge oil-rigging machine.

BANGKOK: -- A trailer truck yesterday hit a beam holding up a pedestrian bridge on a major road in eastern Bangkok early yesterday, causing it to drop on a passing pickup truck and instantly killing the driver.

Traffic on the road came to a standstill for up to six hours before four cranes were brought in to remove the 30-tonne piece of concrete over to the other side of the Borommaratchachonnani Road. Southbound traffic was directed to nearby roads to ease the congestion.

The 28-wheel truck, carrying a huge oil-rigging machine, was part of a three-truck motorcade led by a police cruiser heading to the South. The two trailers behind managed to stop in time. The driver Thanongsak Sathitpao has been charged with causing death through carelessness.

However, the police cruiser, assigned to the Traffic Police Division, has disappeared. Division chief Pol Maj-General Piya Tawichai said he was looking to see if the policemen in the cruiser should also be held liable for the accident.

Eyewitnesses said the police cruiser did not stop to help and instead sped away. The trailer-truck company Lak Thong Logistics Co Ltd had hired the officers to lead the motorcade. Normally, most companies hire cruisers from the Highway Police Division to do this job.


-- The Nation 2013-05-11

The Police Escort fled the scene.

Why does that not surprise me in the slightest?

Did it not occur to Thailands finest that people were probably injured at the scene and were in need of help?

Spineless cowards.

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"However, the police cruiser, assigned to the Traffic Police Division,
has disappeared. Division chief Pol Maj-General Piya Tawichai said he
was looking to see if the policemen in the cruiser should also be held
liable for the accident."

The BIB are suppose to be in a position that merits respect and a position that people look upto

This is an absolute disgrace that a copper fled the scene

This person should be named and shamed, but he will probably just end up getting re-assigned

to an inactive paid position

Take heart Pol Maj-General Piya Tawichai, and look on the bright side.

It won't be difficult to find the police escort driver and car. Assignment record, name and number, two way radio, on board tracking device etc.

You get the picture, I'm sure...

Or - the police cruiser was an illegal plant? The escort drivers were high on ... but wait, they raced off the get help... Is this not the most ridiculous example of police you could imagine? And yes charge them with negligence, leaving the scene of an accident, and so on but it will all just go away as always (sigh). T.i.T.

So much for the logistics operators. Having been involved in delivery of the wind farm blades and components to Korat over the 300+ kilometres, we made sure the 19 bridges we travelled under were all able to allow the loads to pass and that also entailed lowering tyre pressures to clear by inches in some places.

Well they should run away.

"However, the police cruiser, assigned to the Traffic Police Division, has disappeared. Division chief Pol Maj-General Piya Tawichai said he was looking to see if the policemen in the cruiser should also be held liable for the accident"

Er no...the transport company concerned is 100% liable nobody else when moving oversize loads they are suppose to have a route plane and the route has been physically checked when going through built up area to check things like..."will the load go under bridges" etc...seems to me a mai pen rai attitude has been applied to this move...

In a lot of respects the driver of the truck is not liable either and should have not been charged, however the owner of the transport company should be charged

Its sad someone got killed but one can only make one comment about this accident and the BiB doing a bunk...

The police escort didn't "flee the scene". That would have required them looking in their rear view mirrors

Not sure if it made a difference or not, but the "police" the transport company "hired" to escort them were not the normal highway police who usually do the escort stuff.

The police were freelancing apparently and may NOT have known that route.

Read the last paragraph carefully.

The police were freelancing apparently and may NOT have known that route.

Irrespective of whether they knew the route or not...accountability for this accident sits with the transport company.

In situations like this the police escort is to keep other road users out the way of the load.

Not sure if it made a difference or not, but the "police" the transport company "hired" to escort them were not the normal highway police who usually do the escort stuff.

The police were freelancing apparently and may NOT have known that route.

Read the last paragraph carefully.

They can still be on duty...it's just the company must pay/reimburse the police dept for the transport assistance.

At least one error in the article as Borommaratchachonnani Road is over here in western Bangkok not eastern Bangkok....but this is a Nation article.

Normally the police who do these type o escorts are always freelancing...

Have to pay them in cash and an official receipt is never ever available ... So that part is not the logistics companies fault...

But the crash is... This is why when ever doing oversize shipments you have to do a road survey.

It is also very coon for the height of pedestrian bridges to be miss labeled. No ally they all have signs showing height of 5.5 meters, but this is rarely true.

As the heighten have originally been 5.5 meters 20 years ago when the road was first made (or maybe not), but then every time they re-pave the road and slap another layer of black top onto the road, the gov. never goes back and re-labels the clearance from 5.5 to the new clearance height.

So you can never trust the road signs and actually need to do a physical check of the route measuring an obstacles on the route

Also feel bad for the truck driver, as his team let him down. The road survey is never done by the guy actually driving, but is normally done by management or senior employee.

So likely the driver had received the green light and the specified route he must travel in advance

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How very, very sad.

I can sometimes understand a civilian fleeing, because people can be pretty brutal to those they believe caused the accident, but the police are armed and they were not even directly involved in the accident.

I better shut up or I will be really really mean ....

I expect the policeman's story will be he kept going to get help because his communications radio had just stopped working...and while going for help this cruiser broke down (such bad luck) before he could reach help...and there he was stranded in the middle of no where (in Bangkok). Plus he might have just signed out on leave...based on other news stories regarding police misdoings it appears "being on leave" is a standard excuse for them not contacting anyone after an incident involving them arises. "Who me???....no, it wasn't me me....I was on leave in the next city."

Rest in peace to the poor man killed in this terrible accident.

Not sure if it made a difference or not, but the "police" the transport company "hired" to escort them were not the normal highway police who usually do the escort stuff.

The police were freelancing apparently and may NOT have known that route.

Read the last paragraph carefully.

Begs the question if they were freelancing were they authorised to use an official vehicle ? Hardly likely but what difference would it make as the BIB seem to be involved in nothing but unofficial endeavours of all descriptions. The driver may be facing a charge and the book should be thrown at the transport company too, again hardly likely.

"However, the police cruiser, assigned to the Traffic Police Division,

has disappeared. Division chief Pol Maj-General Piya Tawichai said he

was looking to see if the policemen in the cruiser should also be held

liable for the accident."

The BIB are suppose to be in a position that merits respect and a position that people look upto

This is an absolute disgrace that a copper fled the scene

This person should be named and shamed, but he will probably just end up getting re-assigned

to an inactive paid position

inactive means the cop got more time to collect all sorts of extra complimentary benefits ,, shame RIP for the driver and feel sad for his family

^{A totally avoidable "accident" and an unnecessary death.}

The police in this case would have had no role or responsibility for checking the suitability of the route for an oversized load. They were there, presumably, to clear regular traffic for the oversized trucks.

But once the accident occurred and the pickup truck was crushed, the police fleeing the scene and failing to render assistance is inexcuseable. The police shouldn't be hung out to dry for the accident, but they should be for what happened thereafter.

This is so sad, a few feet in either direction and the beam would have missed him RIP

"However, the police cruiser, assigned to the Traffic Police Division, has disappeared. Division chief Pol Maj-General Piya Tawichai said he was looking to see if the policemen in the cruiser should also be held liable for the accident."

Such a great example, it is no wonder the van drivers do a runner.

Although this death may be seen to be an accident, and therefore reasonably 'sad', is it not also the case (for which there will never be evidence) that the driver of the pickup truck may have been following too close to the vehicle which caused the walkway to fall?

'Keeping your distance' seems something which Thai drivers never EVER think about.

"However, the police cruiser, assigned to the Traffic Police Division, has disappeared. Division chief Pol Maj-General Piya Tawichai said he was looking to see if the policemen in the cruiser should also be held liable for the accident."

Such a great example, it is no wonder the van drivers do a runner.

Obvious why the BiB did a runner..one assumes the policeman was not in an "official" capacity doing this job and had "borrowed" the vehicle to do this escort and didnt want to share the loot payed by the transport company with his boss...

I better shut up or I will be really really mean ....

Are we allowed to call these police "POS".

I would also say they were a disgrace to the uniform but, really, who has any respect for that uniform?

Is anybody else wondering just how stable and robust these over bridges are?

Although this death may be seen to be an accident, and therefore reasonably 'sad', is it not also the case (for which there will never be evidence) that the driver of the pickup truck may have been following too close to the vehicle which caused the walkway to fall?

'Keeping your distance' seems something which Thai drivers never EVER think about.

Is there any evidence that the pick up was even on the same side of the road as the truck?

The company I used to work for often had large machinery coming in to our place by road & a coupla times the good old UK police planned the route for these large truck/trailers & got it wrong! Nothing dire like in this case, but a Yorkshire town brought to a complete standstill.

R.I.P.the poor pick-driver.. :-(

If something like a big loaded truck can bring this down - what would happen to these overpasses in a major earthquake? In the US on the interstates you sometimes see craters in the overpasses when this happened but never an entire structure lifted and moved.....

In Europe we joke "truck at a low bridge, drivers look around and say to each other: 'no police, let's try it'"

The Thai version is much more sophisticated of course.

RIP the driver of the pickup

Is there any rebar in that bridge? How fast was the truck going to pull down that bridge? Should a bridge fall down that easily?