One killed, 23 injured in 9-vehicle pileup

[ChiangmaiRob]

Every time It's at night when their either asleep at the wheel or driving too fast when you can't see 200 yards in front of you because the lighting so bad. Refuse now to drive on highways at night because there's so many idiots.

Not making excuses for any poor or reckless driving, but your point about lighting is very valid. Take Petchkasem road southbound as an example. Once you get past the first Chaam/Hua Hin exit, it turns into a poorly maintained dual carriage way with little to no street lighting which runs like this for about 300 km, until it improves a little bit near Chumphon. This is the main arterial route from Bangkok to Phuket and all in between.

Driving down there in the day time takes concentration, doing it at night with no street lighting, some trucks with no lights, some lit up like Christmas trees, after a while it almost become hallucinogenic, and gauging distance is extremely difficult.

You can never stop reckless driving, but you can at least improve aspects of it to make it safer to drive and stop accidents caused by external factors like poor road surface and lack of lighting. For the main road to the south of Thailand, full of heavy goods vehicles it really should be improved. This is just one example of an area like this.

You are correct in that poor road surfaces should be improved, but unfortunately, that is in an ideal world, but there are highways all over the world with poor road surfaces and without lighting, that's why vehicles have headlights, so the drivers can see where they are going. If a highway/road has a poor road surface or no lights and/or poor markings, than you simply drive according to the given conditions, and those conditions can be anything that can adversely affect your driving, including, poor or no lighting, weather conditions, road surface, traffic volume etc etc.

[ChiangmaiRob]

a sleep comes to mind if breaks fail on a wagon , the breaks come on.

.... or even brakes!

[jacknorman]

Don't any bus or truck have brakes in this country, this happens every day

http://www.thephuketnews.com/bus-slams-into-rear-of-phuket-taxi-injuring-driver-and-passenger-51978.php

[Nobb]

Did they check the trailer truck driver for drugs or alcohol?

[mathias67]

Of course it was faulty brakes. It's ALWAYS faulty brakes, and NEVER anything to do with reckless, stupid Thai drivers who should never be allowed to drive anything but a buffalo.

Or more to the point he had been driving for excessive hours and even the drugs he probably taken were not enough to keep him awake. As another person said in the UK and other parts of the world it is the drivers responsibility to ensure their car/truck etc is road worthy and would pobably find himself up on charges of manslaughter if not worse Oh well lets hope he can get Bt100,000 together and he will get off anyway.

[richard_smith237]

Of course it was faulty brakes. It's ALWAYS faulty brakes, and NEVER anything to do with reckless, stupid Thai drivers who should never be allowed to drive anything but a buffalo.

Maybe you are right, but still this could happen anywhere and in fact it does happen everywhere.

Years ago a trailer truck came down a heavy slope in Switzerland, driven by a Dutch driver, brakes faltered just when he was about to reach the bottom of the slope where there was a bridge that allowed only one way traffic.

The truck crashed into the waiting vehicles, killing nine on the spot.

If you ask him about how he deals with this horrific accident that left so many dead, he claimed it was god's will.

Morons live everywhere, is my point.

You wrote "Years Ago" - and herein lies the issue... Accidents such as this occur globally, we see the news in the US, in the UK, the rest of developed world. However, accidents such as this are few and far between.

What we see here in Thailand is accidents such as this on a frequency many of us consider to be way way too high, a common occurrence... A Bus falling down a ravine, a Mini-Van skidding off the road and killing its passengers, A lorry freewheeling down a hill with break failure... These headlines surprise no one in Thailand any more...

Its tragic, but more than that it shows a level of carelessness by those driving these vehicles, by those owning these vehicles and by those in a position to enforce the laws - IMO this carelessness borders on contempt for the general public.

[mrjonyoung]

I want to buy a Honda! Great crash test rating!

[ableguy]

Every time It's at night when their either asleep at the wheel or driving too fast when you can't see 200 yards in front of you because the lighting so bad. Refuse now to drive on highways at night because there's so many idiots.

Not making excuses for any poor or reckless driving, but your point about lighting is very valid. Take Petchkasem road southbound as an example. Once you get past the first Chaam/Hua Hin exit, it turns into a poorly maintained dual carriage way with little to no street lighting which runs like this for about 300 km, until it improves a little bit near Chumphon. This is the main arterial route from Bangkok to Phuket and all in between.

Driving down there in the day time takes concentration, doing it at night with no street lighting, some trucks with no lights, some lit up like Christmas trees, after a while it almost become hallucinogenic, and gauging distance is extremely difficult.

You can never stop reckless driving, but you can at least improve aspects of it to make it safer to drive and stop accidents caused by external factors like poor road surface and lack of lighting. For the main road to the south of Thailand, full of heavy goods vehicles it really should be improved. This is just one example of an area like this.

What you should be asking is why nobody Thai gives a shit.

[Usual Suspect]

I cannot see from the photo whether or not this is yet another Thai truck that the driver feels it's beneficial to hang a curtain full width of his screen, & up to halfway up the screen..now bearing in mind your average Thai male is a shorta*** , then there's no way he's have even seen the Honda car before he slammed into the bus also..!

What other country allows (speeding) truck/trailer combos to have the lower half of their road vision blocked-off..?

Or buses that have those phoenix stickers right across their windscreens..?

(Usually the sticker cannot be seen due to 5 rows of lights!)

[bander]

Of course it was faulty brakes. It's ALWAYS faulty brakes, and NEVER anything to do with reckless, stupid Thai drivers who should never be allowed to drive anything but a buffalo.

Thainess

[soalbundy]

Can happen anywhere, there was a run away bus in London the other day causing injury and damage, apparently it really was the brakes.

[Johnny S]

Brake failure or the curve came to fast is very common here in the moron country

second that - they should never be allowed to drive any kind of vehicle ...

[Maggusoil]

A problem with the brakes ah well that's ok then just carry on as usual brake failure is a natural thing there is nothing that can be done regarding such an act of god like brakes not working such is life or death in this case.

Brakes seem to fail a lot here. Maybe its the climate . . .