New year’s road safety campaign sees spike in accidents across Thailand

The nationwide road safety campaign over the New Year holidays, spanning from December 29 to January 4, experienced a substantial 385 road accidents on its second day alone. These incidents resulted in 404 injuries and claimed 37 lives, according to figures disclosed by Justice Minister Police Colonel Tawee Sodsong and the Road Safety Directing Centre.

Tak, a northern province, reported the highest number of accidents and injuries, both numbering 18. Bangkok, on the other hand, bore the brunt of fatalities, with four deaths. On an encouraging note, 37 provinces did not register any deaths.

Speeding was the primary cause, contributing to 34.55% of the accidents, while 22.60% were due to drunk driving. A startling 85.29% of these accidents involved motorcycles. The majority, or 80.52%, of these accidents occurred on straight roads, with highways accounting for 38.44% and rural or village roads making up 35.32%. The most dangerous time was identified as between 6.01pm to 7.00pm. The highest number of casualties, both injuries and deaths, was among the 20 to 29 age group.

On Saturday, the country had deployed 51,408 personnel, manning 1,774 safety checkpoints. The data from yesterday escalates the toll in the first two days of the seven-day safety campaign to 724 accidents, with 739 people injured and 71 lives lost, reported Bangkok Post.

The Department of Probation disclosed that there were 644 violations of traffic law from December 29 to December 30, with drunk driving accounting for a staggering 95.81% of these cases. Samut Prakan led in terms of drink-driving cases with 78, followed by Bangkok with 69 and Chiang Mai with 58 instances.

Interestingly, the World Health Organisation records indicate that Thailand’s roads claim an average of 60 lives daily throughout the year, suggesting that the statistics provided by the Road Safety Directing Centre may underestimate the actual fatality rate. One plausible explanation could be that some of the injured victims succumbed to their injuries later.