How can Thailand curb its appalling road fatality rate?

[handdrummer]

reversing into a side street from a main road is part of the UK driving test.

But of course you wouldn't reverse for any distance in order to use the side street.

i can understand that, but backing the length of a soi into another soi, that may have oncoming traffic, that you can't see, isn't the smartest thing to do.

[buksida]

Over 32,000 road accidents in Thailand in past two years
Thailand, dubbed one of the most dangerous countries for driving, saw a total of 32,190 road accidents in 2020 and 2021, mostly involving pickups, according to the Transport Ministry.

Thailand, which has been ranked as the second most dangerous country to drive in by a website, reported 21,052 accidents in 2020 and 11,138 accidents in 2021.

The Zutobi, which is a driver’s education portal website that publishes a new score annually, reported in May that Thailand scored badly on five different factors to rank it on second on the list of most dangerous nations to drive in.

The factors include estimated road death rates, maximum motorway speed limits, seat-belt wearing rates, alcohol-related deaths, and blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limits.

In its report in May, Zutobi ranked Thailand in second spot with 4.35 points, behind South Africa (3.41 points). The United States was third with 5.03 points.

According to the Ministry of Transport’s Data Catalogue, motorcycles did not cause the most accidents as many assumed but most accidents that happened in 2020 and 2021 involved pickup trucks (37 per cent), followed by a category of private and public vehicles (27 per cent).

https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40018423

If the govt is reporting this, the real figures are likely to be way higher - though the scooter stats are surprising.

[Big Boy]

I think many motorcycle accidents are brushed under the carpet and not reported?

The stats probably come from insurance sources, and many motorcycles will not be insured.

[buksida]

That would explain it as it refers to 'accidents' as opposed to 'fatalities' which you would expect scooters to be much higher (I refuse to call them motorcycles).

[buksida]

NT helps create driving app
National Telecom (NT) has joined forces with the Royal Thai Police to create a system that lets motorists check their driving behaviour via a mobile application in a bid to improve driving and reduce road accidents.

The Khub Dee (Good Drive) app was developed in collaboration with other related agencies, including the Department of Land Transport and Krungthai Bank.

The app provides road traffic information and a system to check driving behaviour points.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/245392 ... riving-app


Can you imagine how many will be playing with the app whilst driving to see how badly they've scored.

[HHTel]

Road accidents involving motor bikes on the rise in Phuket

Phuket has also seen a higher-than-normal percentage of children and teenagers involved in road accidents. About 45% of all deaths and hospitalisations on the road were people under the age of 14.

PM Prayut Chan-o-cha vowed earlier this year to lower road deaths to 12 per 100,000 people over the next five years and, using a model inspired by Sweden, completely eliminate fatalities on the streets of Thailand by 2050.

“Of course, I know the problem and how to solve it. But it won’t work 100% because of a lack of public cooperation. I ordered that the law must be strictly enforced against traffic offenders. But I would have liked to seek people’s cooperation first.”

https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/road-de ... 7de1JaqubQ

[Dannie Boy]

If you think driving in Thailand is dangerous, don’t ever drive in Russia!!

[PeteC]

You're never going to see any true stats from Russia, nor from China, and probably not from plenty of other ME, previous Eastern Bloc or South Asian countries either.

[Dannie Boy]

I don’t know how representative those video clips were, but they indicate a complete lack of awareness/regard to safety!!

[buksida]

Not much different to here then. Thai news channels have a daily half-hour slot of the previous day's road carnage - the levels of stupidity on the roads here are mind-numbing.

Edit: looking at that video, a lot of those accidents are in pretty severe weather conditions ... they can't use that excuse here ...

[Dannie Boy]

This is about a major road incident in China - they claim it was caused by bad fog, whereas it was really caused by drivers failing to react to the foggy conditions and drive with greater care, rather than ploughing on regardless!!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-64112192

[Gregjam]

An interesting oped from the WHO representative in Thailand which politely says what we all know:

https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opi ... n-for-life

If you remove the polite speak you can extract "the authorities could do more by enforcing the existing rules and regulations" which is as good a summary as any.

[bajm]

Thailand has officially been voted the country with the world’s worst drivers, with the highest number of tragic traffic injury deaths by far, at 32 per 100,000 people.

https://www.comparethemarket.com.au/car ... t-drivers/

[HHTel]

And shown by many today.
As usual, road closures are not signed in advance so you'll only know about such events when you're on top of it.

Today, at the height of 'school runs', the 'silly' railway crossing at Soi 88 was closed. Consequently after doing a drop at Salesian, I turned into 88 on the way to my youngest's school. Of course with the crossing closed it caused queues in all directions. Traffic from Petchkasem was diverted along the narrow road at the back of MV ending up in Soi 94. That's when what could have been a very very serious 'accident'. As I was approaching 94, I could see that traffic was at a standstill both ways in 94. At least 3 cars in each direction stationery over the rails.
I made the comment that should a train come through now this could turn out really dangerous. With that, the barriers came down damaging the roof of 2 cars. I pulled across the road facing oncoming traffic so as to give space for the trapped cars to free themselves. Motorbikes filled the gaps and only after my passenger screaming for them to get out of the way did they move. The problem is staring them in the face but they're oblivious to it.

Anyway, fortunately, the cars managed to remove themselves literally a minute before the train came by. There was obviously no notification to the train driver that there was a problem ahead. So much for automatic systems.

I would NEVER enter a rail crossing unless my exit is clear. They should be treated like 'box junctions'. Having said that, how many locals know what a 'box junction' is.

Thankfully apart from a couple of cars suffering minor damage, no-one was hurt. The outcome could have been catastrophic.

[Big Boy]

At least the closures were announced in advance i.e. 21:00 until 04:00

There actually was an accident not far from there, but it only resulted in a broken leg.