Drive to decrease holiday accidents

PHUKET CITY: The Phuket Office of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (ODPM) has launched a campaign to reduce the number of road accidents, injuries and fatalities in the period to the end of the New Year holiday.

The ODPM is urging road users not to drink and drive and motorcyclists to wear helmets. It has also urged all drivers to carry their driving licences at all times.

Police are to be strict about enforcing the traffic laws, and will be setting up checkpoints on many roads.

Around 15 people are killed on Phuket’s roads each month – almost all of them while riding motorcycles – and the ODPM wants to reduce this by almost 50%, to nine or fewer.

The new head of the Phuket office of the ODPM, Kawee Sukunthamath, told the Gazette, “We want people to be conscientious about following traffic rules, and to take practical steps to stay safe, particularly while on a motobike, for example by wearing a helmet and using the headlight at night, especially on the bypass road, where motorcycles are vulnerable to other vehicles.”