Class commotion: Gridlock grips Nakhon Ratchasima’s first day

The scene on the first day of classes in Nakhon Ratchasima today was chaotic because of a traffic gridlock. Along the main city streets, in front of four large educational institutions in the city centre, over 14,000 students were caught in gridlocked traffic, seemingly with no end in sight.

The four main schools were the Nakhon Ratchasima City School, Nakhon Ratchasima Vocational College, Nakhon Ratchasima Kindergarten School, and Suranari Wittaya School

Most parents drove personal cars and motorcycles to drop off their children at school early in the morning to make it in time for the 7.40am flag ceremony.

This caused severe congestion on the roads in front of the schools, with vehicles packed bumper-to-bumper in every lane.

The traffic stretched over 2 kilometres, especially at major intersections with traffic lights where vehicles were in fierce competition to clear the lights. Cars were inching along for hours, frequently coming to a complete stop.

As their patience wore thin, some parents on motorcycles attempted to weave between the gridlocked cars to rush and drop off their children, with some even driving their motorcycles onto the sidewalks against the flow of pedestrian traffic.

The atmosphere was chaotic, with police officers, school security guards, and teachers deployed to facilitate traffic flow and ensure safety around the schools, but the sheer amount of cars proved their tasks to be difficult.

Director of Nakhon Ratchasima Kindergarten School, Suphanat Supharan said the morning traffic jams around the cluster of four large schools in the area is a difficult problem to solve. Highlighting the wider issue of inadequate road and traffic facilities for the 13th-largest province in Thailand

He urged community leaders to provide guidance or suggest solutions to improve the situation and enable smoother travel to the schools, reported Daily News.

In similar news, Pattaya Mayor Poramet Ngampichet launched a groundbreaking initiative to tackle the chaos of school traffic as the new semester kicks off. The mayor has rallied the Order Maintenance Division and traffic police from Pattaya City to ensure smooth and safe commutes for students and parents.