Highways congested as travellers head back to Bangkok
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Highways have been congested as many thousands of people continue to travel back to Bangkok after the long holiday break.
The Road Safety Centre said 227 people have been killed and 2,163 others injured in 2,104 road accidents over the first four days of the seven-day accident-monitoring period over the New Year.
The northern province of Chiang Mai has had the worst road casualties with 12 deaths and 91 people injured in 93 accidents over the four days.
Only eight of the 77 provinces have reported no fatalities: Trang, Nakhon Phanom, Phatthalung, Sing Buri, Uttaradit, Yasothon, Mae Hong Son and Narathiwat, an adviser to Deputy Education Minister Gen Suthat Kanchananonkul said.
On Friday, there were 367 road accidents around the country, with 37 people killed and 381 injured, Suthat said. Drunk driving was still the major cause at 36.5 per cent followed by excessive speeding at 19 per cent.
Some 82 per cent of the accidents involved motorcycles, while 39.5 per cent of accidents took place on highways and another 37 per cent occurred on village roads.
Two thirds of crashes occurred on straight stretches of road (67 per cent) followed by curves at 17 per cent.
About a quarter of accidents occurred between 4pm and 8pm. And just over half the victims (51 per cent) were of working age, he added.
Officials manning 2,277 checkpoints arrested 87,353 traffic law violators – 26,638 of who failed to present a driver’s licence, while 25,004 others failed to wear motorcycle helmets.
Despite Udon Thani governor Nophawat Singsakda’s previous order for speed bumps to be installed on 43 roads leading to rail crossings, a train crashed into a pick-up on Friday night, killing two people in Muang district.
This was the province’s third such accident in seven days. On December 28, a train-car crash killed one person and injured four others, and two days later two people were killed in a similar crash.
