280 killed, 2,877 injured in first four days of no drunk driving campaign

[webfact]

280 killed, 2,877 injured in first four days of no drunk driving campaign

 

 

BANGKOK: -- A total of 280 people were killed and 2,877 injured in road accidents nationwide in the first four days of the one week “No Drunk Driving” campaign beginning from December 29 to January 1.

 

According to Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith, only yesterday, the fourth day of the seven-day road safety campaign, 81 died and 778 injured in 751 accidents.

 

Throughout the first four days, 280 died and 2,877 were injured, he said.

 

He said drunk driving and speeding continued to be the major causes of the accidents.

 

Sakhon Nakhon in the Northeast has the highest fatalities (7) while Chiang Mai recorded the highest number of accidents and injuries, at 33 and 35 respectively.

 

Full story: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/280-killed-2877-injured-first-four-days-no-drunk-driving-campaign/

 

-- © Copyright Thai PBS 2017-01-02

[tartempion]

That's an average of 70 death per day and obviously does not include deaths within 30 days.
Statistics for France with 65 million inhabitants is 9,48 for 2015, 30 days deaths included.
Long way to go Thailand but motorbike drivers are the #1 victims.
Just yesterday driving away from my home saw a motorbike driver grasping his gsm out of his pocket and putting the thing to his left ear.

[trogers]

Hell was calling...

[Generalchaos]

Darwin was 100% correct. It is a pity that some of the REAL contenders for the Darwin awards have hired drivers and do not have to drive themselves around in traffic. Half of them would be incapable to cross a road - Hence they need an escort of 20 vehicles with flashing lights and bullhorns blaring wherever they choose to go, along with road closures to normal traffic - to keep them safe.

[TPI]

4 minutes ago, Generalchaos said:

Darwin was 100% correct. It is a pity that some of the REAL contenders for the Darwin awards have hired drivers and do not have to drive themselves around in traffic. Half of them would be incapable to cross a road - Hence they need an escort of 20 vehicles with flashing lights and bullhorns blaring wherever they choose to go, along with road closures to normal traffic - to keep them safe.

Watch as 10 busloads of locals blast by at 140km escorted by Highway patrol cars with sirens blaring and flashing lights!

[The man from udon]

Does these figures include pedestrians and bicycles.

[wvavin]

The Thai government seems very proud of this statistic. Keep it up!

[thenewgoo]

"Might have fallen asleep" - we'll never know. Sounds like an excuse for reckless driving to me!

[chainarong]

Big difference I know in population and size but my place of origin West Oz , they had 190 for the year and they are going spastic..........................

[jabis]

Watched yesterday early morning as about 20 youths dispatched rockets towards oncoming cars on a nearby bridge across Mae Ping  - wondered how the hell nobody got  run over, as the rockets werent' your average roman candles, and the rocket scientists were _on the road_ with little to no amount of space to dodge if someone loses control of their vehicle.

[paulbj2]

I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere that in Thailand, you actually have to be dead on the road when the Ambulance comes to shovel you up, to count as a road accident death. If you get into the Ambulance alive, you don't count. If that is really the case, the "real" death rate is way, way higher than the official figures suggest as, for example, head injury victims often survive a few hours or days before expiring. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

 

For comparison, the death rate on UK roads for a population of 64,100,000 (as of 2013) is around 1,700/annum or an average of 4.66/day. In 2014 it rose to 1775/annum or 4.86/day; 2014 was not a good vintage for road accidents it seems!

 

The UK has a pretty low rate of road deaths by international standards perhaps because the laws against drink driving are rigidly enforced and the penalties for getting caught are quite severe.

[twizzian]

1 hour ago, wvavin said:

The Thai government seems very proud of this statistic. Keep it up!

 

For the drunk driving campaign, it all falls on deaf ears 'Nationwide'.

[Nbarch]

So what the Government is saying is; this year’s road safety campaign has been a huge success.

[paulbj2]

Sweden has the lowest rate of road accident deaths in the world, most years, despite experiencing extreme weather conditions during the winter months over much of the country. This may be because they have very strict drink drive laws with extremely severe penalties for infringements together with a very low blood alcohol limit of 0.02% (one beer puts most people over that limit) compared to the UK and most states in the US where it is 0.08% or continental Europe where the limit is mostly 0.05% (so 1 beer, maybe absolute limit 2 beers). In Japan the limit is effectively zero alcohol at the wheel.

 

The Swedish figure is 2.8 road deaths/100,000 inhabitants,

for the UK: 2.9/100,000

for Australia: 5.4/100,000

for the USA: 10.6/100,000

for South East Asia: 17.0/100,000

for the World: 17.4/100,000

for Africa: 26.6/100,000

for Thailand: 36.2/100,000

 

The worst country in western Europe is Lithuania at 10.6/100,000

however the European average is at 9.3/100,000.

 

Nevertheless, you could sum it up as: if you want to stay alive, confine your driving to Europe and in particular to Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Spain. If you have lost interest in life, then drive in Africa or better yet, come to Thailand!

 

These are WHO figures. If this absolute carnage were to be caused by terrorism, by airline crashes or by any other common means, the whole world would be up in arms but because it happens on the world's roads we  pretty much ignore it! 

[Marvo]

Does the Gov't / media say these figures are good, or particularly bad?

AVG. daily road fatalities for Thailand is 66 per day, = 264 for four days.

 

So, not much difference. Same happens at Songkran.

[dcnx]

They keep a daily score as if it's a competition.

 

GO THAILAND, GO!

DIE! DIE! DIE!

MAI PEN RAI! 

DIE! DIE! DIE!

 

(Roaring applause from audience)

[Kopitiam]

I wonder the statistics include these 25 deaths in one accident.

 

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/horrific-thai-road-smash-kills-25-092834799.html

[Patmalone]

I think the towns are having a competition to see who can get the highest death rate, yesterday it was Udon Thani, what town will be tomorrow, can't take any bets, it's illegal just like drink driving and speeding, the BIB has a lot to answer for.

 

[USMC1962]

Thailand is number one in the world for traffic deaths and has been for some time. It is not even safe to walk. I suppose that if they slowed down traffic would come to a standstill and destroy the economy.

[phantomfiddler]

A few days ago a farang friend was stopped at a red light. A lady ran into the back of his vehicle as she was texting. The policeman who came to the scene looked at the farangs Irish driving license and said "You are Irish, you don,t know how to drive in Thailand. It is your fault" ! All very sad really, and the accidents mount up

[sotonowl]

2 hours ago, jabis said:

Watched yesterday early morning as about 20 youths dispatched rockets towards oncoming cars on a nearby bridge across Mae Ping  - wondered how the hell nobody got  run over, as the rockets werent' your average roman candles, and the rocket scientists were _on the road_ with little to no amount of space to dodge if someone loses control of their vehicle.

That would have been Kim Jong Un testing his ICBM's

[Brer Fox]

Congratulations PM Prayut and Thailand. I think you have broken the world record of road deaths and accidents in such a short space of time. Songkram could be even bigger and better. 

[overherebc]

38 minutes ago, Kopitiam said:

I wonder the statistics include these 25 deaths in one accident.

 

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/horrific-thai-road-smash-kills-25-092834799.html

 

If you spend most of your time watching soaps and never watch the news or read newspapers how are you going to be aware of what is happening on the roads?

[dinsdale]

Have to die within 24 hrs after the accident to be deemed a road fatality. Road accident Sat, die Mon, not included in fatality stats. This is in Thailand I'm talking about.

[todlad]

1 hour ago, phantomfiddler said:

A few days ago a farang friend was stopped at a red light. A lady ran into the back of his vehicle as she was texting. The policeman who came to the scene looked at the farangs Irish driving license and said "You are Irish, you don,t know how to drive in Thailand. It is your fault" ! All very sad really, and the accidents mount up

 

A few weeks ago I was carrying my toddler daughter across the road, just down from a junction. We were safe, I had looked both ways ... then a woman on a motorbike came round the corner and into our road. She was reading her phone and had seen nothing and no one. I stopped. She looked up and saw me and just managed to stop in time. I was ready to knock her off her bike to protect my daughter and myself even though I realised there could be all sorts of bother because I am a foreigner.

 

These people are everywhere and they are deadly. Let them kill themselves but do not try to take me and my daughter with them.

[sezze]

2 hours ago, paulbj2 said:

Sweden has the lowest rate of road accident deaths in the world, most years, despite experiencing extreme weather conditions during the winter months over much of the country. This may be because they have very strict drink drive laws with extremely severe penalties for infringements together with a very low blood alcohol limit of 0.02% (one beer puts most people over that limit) compared to the UK and most states in the US where it is 0.08% or continental Europe where the limit is mostly 0.05% (so 1 beer, maybe absolute limit 2 beers). In Japan the limit is effectively zero alcohol at the wheel.

 

The Swedish figure is 2.8 road deaths/100,000 inhabitants,

for the UK: 2.9/100,000

for Australia: 5.4/100,000

for the USA: 10.6/100,000

for South East Asia: 17.0/100,000

for the World: 17.4/100,000

for Africa: 26.6/100,000

for Thailand: 36.2/100,000

 

The worst country in western Europe is Lithuania at 10.6/100,000

however the European average is at 9.3/100,000.

 

Nevertheless, you could sum it up as: if you want to stay alive, confine your driving to Europe and in particular to Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Denmark and Spain. If you have lost interest in life, then drive in Africa or better yet, come to Thailand!

 

These are WHO figures. If this absolute carnage were to be caused by terrorism, by airline crashes or by any other common means, the whole world would be up in arms but because it happens on the world's roads we  pretty much ignore it! 

Statistics are all they are , nothing more then statistics . I'm not saying they don't mean anything , but you can prove what you want with them .  Something not in the statistics is the population density . Sweden , while being the safest country is extremely safe , but also has accoring to wiki :

Sweden consequently has a low population density of 21 inhabitants per square kilometre (54/sq mi), with the highest concentration in the southern half of the country. Approximately 85% of the population lives in urban area .

So if you make a mistake outside of the towns , you very unlikely to have another car hit you .

Also , since Sweden is a cold country , it has less motorbikes ( or similar ) then in southern parts of the world . Death rate amongst motorbikes is extremely high in Thailand but it is high everywhere .

Mind you , i'm not picking on Sweden , i just found this a good example . Thailand is horrible on traffic , and part of it is alcohol , but also complete ignorance of what they do .They care only the now and not the tomorrow . More people die in traffic in Thailand (or anywhere else )  not being drunk then being it . Drinking and driving is a problem , but there is a lot more which needs to be handled .

[Ace of Pop]

So its safer to reside in an Islamic Nation with no drink served, how do the Stats look there.?.Must be excellent, if not cant all be blamed on Drink here can it.?. 

[Prbkk]

25 dead in one accident today: mini bus, pick-up collision...

[Geoff Snell]

School kids times 5 plus mobile phones times 5 plus no helmets times 5 plus no license times 5 equals get out of the way we're coming through the Pearley Gates

[mania]

5 hours ago, Prbkk said:

25 dead in one accident today: mini bus, pick-up collision...

 

I was just looking at that

Also here in Thai but translatable

http://workpointtv.com/news/20095