Schools ‘need to be teaching teens about road safety’

Citing road casualties during the New Year break’s “seven dangerous days”, he said the number of youths losing their lives in road accidents this year was similar to that in previous years – a fourth of those killed and injured were under the age of 20. 

In fact, 12 to 13 per cent of casualties were minors under the age of 15 and most accidents involved motorcycles. 

Instead of preparing young people properly about road safety, the Thai education system usually leaves them to learn road rules at their own peril, Thanapong said. 

Many children, whose legs are too short to reach the ground for balance, hang on to their parents or motorbike drivers’ waists |while carrying heavy school backpacks. 

Also many ride while they do not wear helmets, which puts them at a greater risk of accidents. 

It is also no surprise that these same children grow up to become people who do not feel that motorcycles are dangerous and see no reason to wear helmets because they were never told to, he said.

 

‘Thais top for motorbike deaths’

However, he said it was not too late to address this issue so the number of road-accident deaths could be reduced. Schools should start teaching students about road safety and the necessity of wearing helmets, as well as get them involved in campaigns promoting such measures. 

Teachers should also find good teaching materials or interesting articles to stimulate interest among the young as well as to make them aware of the danger, he said. He said this lesson could be part of afternoon activities at 3,500 schools that have already implemented initiatives to cut down on class hours. 

The Disease Control Department’s 2005-2010 report showed that many Thai children learned how to ride motorcycles at the age of 12, even though by law motorcycle licences are restricted to those above the age of 15, and teenagers between 15 and 18 can only ride 110cc motorbikes. 

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), deaths from road accidents are a significant risk, with one person dying in a road accident every 25 seconds, making such accidents the top cause of death among young people aged 15-19. 

The WHO estimated that in Thailand up to 24,237 persons – or 36 out of every 100,000 people – are killed in road accidents every year. This ranks the Kingdom the second worst after Libya. Thailand topped the list when it came to the highest number of deaths from motorcycle accidents. 

The estimates are based on information from insurance companies, the Royal Thai Police and the issuance of death certificates. The data from death certificates issued from 2011 to 2014 found that youths aged 15-19 were most prone to road-accident deaths at 1,688 cases per year, while most road-accident deaths of teenagers generally involved motorcycles.