Highways congested as travellers head back to Bangkok

[Lite Beer]

Highways congested as travellers head back to Bangkok
Wattana Khamchu,
Seksanti Kalayanawisut
The Sunday Nation

BANGKOK: -- Highways have been congested as many thousands of people continue to travel back to Bangkok after the long holiday break.

The Road Safety Centre said 227 people have been killed and 2,163 others injured in 2,104 road accidents over the first four days of the seven-day accident-monitoring period over the New Year.

The northern province of Chiang Mai has had the worst road casualties with 12 deaths and 91 people injured in 93 accidents over the four days.

Only eight of the 77 provinces have reported no fatalities: Trang, Nakhon Phanom, Phatthalung, Sing Buri, Uttaradit, Yasothon, Mae Hong Son and Narathiwat, an adviser to Deputy Education Minister Gen Suthat Kanchananonkul said.

On Friday, there were 367 road accidents around the country, with 37 people killed and 381 injured, Suthat said. Drunk driving was still the major cause at 36.5 per cent followed by excessive speeding at 19 per cent.

Some 82 per cent of the accidents involved motorcycles, while 39.5 per cent of accidents took place on highways and another 37 per cent occurred on village roads.

Two thirds of crashes occurred on straight stretches of road (67 per cent) followed by curves at 17 per cent.

About a quarter of accidents occurred between 4pm and 8pm. And just over half the victims (51 per cent) were of working age, he added.

Officials manning 2,277 checkpoints arrested 87,353 traffic law violators - 26,638 of who failed to present a driver's licence, while 25,004 others failed to wear motorcycle helmets.

Despite Udon Thani governor Nophawat Singsakda's previous order for speed bumps to be installed on 43 roads leading to rail crossings, a train crashed into a pick-up on Friday night, killing two people in Muang district.

This was the province's third such accident in seven days. On December 28, a train-car crash killed one person and injured four others, and two days later two people were killed in a similar crash.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Highways-congested-as-travellers-head-back-to-Bang-30251140.html

-- The Nation 2015-01-04

[The stuttering parrot]

Crazy stats!

25,000 still no helmets and 26,000 failed to produce a licence.

Truly year in and year out the same results if not worse.

Time for Thailand to truly reflect on this and get a program into the schools from a young age and try and stem the tide of this carnage.

[Fiddlesticks]

Officials manning 2,277 checkpoints arrested 87,353 traffic law violators - 26,638 of who failed to present a driver's licence, while 25,004 others failed to wear motorcycle helmets.

Looks like the police are sitting back and relaxing again this year. Heck, you can count 25,000 riders a day just at the intersections outside the two universities in CR on ANY given day! ! ! !

[DLock]

Every year they roll out the same stories of reducing the road toll and every year it's the same result.

It's not like don't want a reduction, they just aren't smart enough to put a decent campaign together, create strict laws and adhere to them at every level.

The grass level police are too busy collecting 200 baht from every drunk, speeding, unlicensed, underaged, no helmeted, faulty vehicle and then sending them on their way to kill themselves or someone else....that no matter what they say in Bangkok, it will NEVER trickle down to the provinces and actually work.

Is your life worth only 200 baht?

Fail. Please repeat.

[Cuchulainn]

Well, you will give sell licences to morons.

[ttthailand]

They need to enforce the current laws and increase fines as a starter. Education is the key but we know the answer already to that ....

Edited January 4, 2015 by ttthailand

[Jeremy50]

Once again the '7dangerous days' mentality, letting everyone off the hook to get their head back in the sand for the rest of the year. Only a massive year round campaign with the compliance of the population and expert help from abroad will reduce the exorbitant death rate on Thai roads. Meanwhile look forward to the next '7 deadly days' at Sonkran, by which time another 5000 people will have died.

[T_Dog]

I was sitting at a coffee shop on the road to Pai yesterday after a mountain bike ride and the swell and frenzy of vehicles was impressive. Average following distance was about a half a second so not surprising there are a lot of accidents. Two of them occurred within sight of that coffee shop over the past few days. Headed home on the mountain bike I almost got hit by a pickup truck passing on the shoulder.

[Surasak]

I think the "Road Safety Centre" needs to be renamed or better yet shut down, it is a total disgrace.