Bloody day on Phuket’s roads

PHUKET: Four people, including three 11-year-old boys, were killed in two separate road accidents on Monday.

The first accident occurred about 7:30 pm, when three boys on a motorcycle and a sedan collided head-on in front of Andavana Spa, on Thepprathan Rd, Koh Sireh.

The driver, Channarong Sadimin, and one of his passengers, Suriyapong Premjaroen, died at the scene.

The third boy, Piyapong Sukwilai, was rushed to Vachira Phuket Hospital, where he died the following morning. The boys were pupils at Wat Buddhamongkolnimitr School.

Pol Lt Theeradet Jiraksa, Duty Officer at Phuket Police Station, said that the driver of the sedan gave a statement reporting that the three boys, none of whom were wearing helmets, were weaving between cars at high speed before suddenly cutting into his lane, leaving him no time to react.

No charges will be pressed against the driver of the car, who has offered to help the parents with the costs of the boys’ funerals.

The boys were not the first pre-teens to perish in a motorbike accident in November. Less than a week earlier, 12-year-old Adisak Det-aran was killed in an accident on Thepkrasattri Rd in Koh Kaew.

In another fatal accident, also on Monday, a taxi driver crashed his car into an electricity pylon near Super Cheap, on Thepkrasattri Rd, around 8 pm.

“We think the taxi driver dozed off as he was driving and then crashed into the pylon. His neck was broken by the impact and he died at the scene. We found no alcohol in his blood, so we presume that the accident was caused by the driver being tired rather than drunk.

“We estimate that he was driving about 120 kilometers an hour at the time of the accident,” Lt Theeradet explained.

Police named the taxi driver as 39-year-old Chartchai Chuachit, who worked from the taxi stand near Bangkok Hospital Phuket.