There’s a 24 hour ban on alcohol on the weekend preceding AND the actual election weekend this month. And next month is Songkran with the Government mooting possible blanket bans on Songkran day, April 13.

This year the Government says they want an alcohol ban on the biggest annual holiday for Thais. It’s also part of the week when there is a huge rise in road accidents and road-related deaths each year.

The Department of Disease Control is lobbying the government to suspend alcohol sales from April 13, the actual Thai new Year day, in an effort to reduce the annual road carnage.

The department’s deputy director says the agency will formally submit the proposal to the cabinet next week.

The department cites the annual figures for Songkran, saying that most drink/drive cases take place April 13, the first day of the New Year festivities. The department is dismissing concerns the measure could damage the economy, which depends heavily on tourists and revellers, saying that saving lives is paramount.

“The economy doesn’t rely on a single day,” according to the department’s deputy director.

Government agencies traditionally roll out their ‘seven dangerous days campaign’ each Songkran, setting up checkpoints along major roadways and arterials, cracking down on drink/driving and speeding and, generally, huffing and puffing about the need to curb the toll. But none of the campaigns in the past have done anything to stem the tide of a rising road toll each year.

Last year the government even speculated a total ban on allowing people to ride in the back of pick-ups during Songkran – a move that was quickly quashed by an outcry on social media.

There is already a raft of measures to precent the consumption of alcohol during Songkran, such as banning sales of alcohol at popular locations for water fights. These prohibitions have been widely ignored with little enforcement.

by Jane Tyler – Birmingham Mail PHOTOS: Facebook/Liam Workman

Liam Workman, who bought a one-way ticket to Thailand to “start a new life” last December is now critically ill in a Samui hospital with brain injuries following an alleged a hit-and-run motorcycle crash.

Now relatives of Liam are desperate to raise at least £3,000 (125,000 baht) for medical treatment and fly him back home to the UK Midlands.

He was found unconscious and with head injuries on the roadside on Koh Samui.

His family said the 31 year old desperately needs to be moved to a “more advanced” hospital – but his travel insurer would not cover all the costs as he did not have a licence to ride the motorcycle.

Mr Workman bought a one-way ticket to Thailand at the end of December to “start a new life”, according to the story in the Birmingham Mail.

A cousin, Jade Scoular, says “He had travel insurance but they wouldn’t pay out because he didn’t have a licence to ride the moped (motorcycle) and didn’t have a return flight booked, which invalidated the insurance,” she said.

Mr Workman’s Go Fund Me page HERE.

SOURCE: Birmingham Mail

For tips and warnings about riding motorbikes in Thailand read our Top 10 list HERE.

Ten neighbours living adjacent to privately owned Koh Samui airport, unhappy with compensation offers over the noise, have sent up a fleet of kites in protest to blockade the end of the runway.

Soldiers and police were called to Samui International Airport to sort out today’s protest.