Most Thai motorcycle riders don’t wear crash helmets

Only 45% of Thai motorcycle users wear crash helmets, that includes riders and pillion passengers. With young people under 18 the results are a pitiful 22% of users wearing any head protection, even less for children.

Dr. Werapan Supanchaimart, vice chairman of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, said at a seminar yesterday that the Thai Roads Foundation and Road Safety Watch network had been studying the helmet wearing behaviour of both motorcyclists and pillion riders for nine years by gauging the opinions of more than 1.5 million of them across the country in urban and rural areas.

The results are a sad indictment on the Thai education system, the government’s ability to reach out to its community and the police for lacklustre enforcement.

The findings show that, since 2009, the number of people wearing crash helmets vary little from year to year.

• 52% of motorcyclists and 22% of pillion riders wear crash helmets, or an average of 45% of all bike riders

• In the past three years Chiang Mai has the highest rate of crash helmet users in the northern region, at 53%, 59% in Nonthaburi for the central and eastern regions and 61% Phuket for the southern region.

• The provinces with the highest improvement are Nong Bua Lamphu in the north-east, 66%, Phrae province in the North, 69%, Rayong in central and eastern provinces at 56% and Nakhon Si Thammarat in the South, 75%.

• 48% of adult cyclists and pillion riders wear crash helmets, compared to 22% for the youth and 8% for children.

• In Bangkok 85% of motorcyclists wear helmets and the number of pillion riders wearing them jumped from 39% in 2017 to 55% in 2018.

SOURCE: Thai PBS