Mystery shrouds fatal Phuket road accident

PHUKET: Police are investigating a hit-and-run accident that left a man dead on the bypass road last night.

Phuket City Police duty officer Lt Teerawat Amnachjaroenying identified the victim as Wittaya Sapsong, 35, whose body was found at 7:30pm on the southbound side of the bypass road in Koh Kaew, between the Bypass Seafood restaurant and the entrance to Premium Outlet Mall.

He had died of massive head trauma.

According to one reporter, an eyewitnesses said that he saw Mr Wittaya driving his blue motorbike very fast in an effort to overtake a large truck, the back of which was covered with black canvas.

The witness reportedly said that the truck, traveling in the left lane, veered into the passing lane and hit Mr Wittaya, but did not stop.

However, Lt Teerawat told the Gazette today that he did not have any eyewitness accounts of the accident.

A Kusoldharm Foundation worker said that a truck with a leaking fuel line had been parked in the area at the time, but an inspection of the accident site failed to uncover any signs of fuel and there was no way to corroborate the claim.

“I am not sure what kind of vehicle was involved, but given the damage to the motorcycle and the condition of the body. I assumed it must have been big, probably a 10-wheeled truck.

“Had it been a normal passenger car, there would have been fragments of it left behind at the scene from the impact, but that was not the case,” said one Kusoldharm Foundation worker.

The late Mr Wittaya was registered as living on Srisuthat Road in Phuket Town, but actually resided in Pa Khlok, he added.

Mr Wittaya’s normal evening commute home from work would see him traveling along the bypass road northbound, so another unanswered question was what he was doing in the southbound lane at the time, he said.

Mr Wittaya’s body was taken to Vachira Phuket Hosptial.