Thai road toll jumps to 109 after first two days of seven day campaign

Road incidents during the first two days of the seven day New Year holiday period have risen to 974. The southern province of Surat Thani, just north of Phuket, had 33 incidents and 37 people injured. Chiang Rai and Nakhon Sawan have had the highest death toll with 6 deaths each.

Police have been instructed to tighten up traffic checks and controls at high risk areas as the death toll climbed from 43on the first day to 109 on the second, and the number of injured rose by 527 to 993.

Drink driving has been a factor in 35.5% of the incidents and motorcycles have been blamed for 74.6%. 65.1% of the accidents occurred on main roads and 31% on secondary roads.

26.5% of the accidents occurred between 4-8pm, 27% of the casualties were aged over 50.

877,714 vehicles were stopped for checks across the country, 194,549 people were charged with traffic violations, including 53,072 cases of not wearing crash helmets and 48,249 cases of driving with licenses.

SOURCE: Thai PBS World