Death toll from Songkran road accidents rises to 277
Twenty-six people were killed on Friday and 255 injured in 253 road accidents on the last day of the Songkran holidays.
A total of 2,365 road accidents during the seven days from April 10-16 claimed 277 lives and injured 2,357, the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation said on Saturday.
Speeding was the single biggest cause of accidents (32.01 per cent), followed by drunk driving (28.29 per cent) and cutting lanes (18.27 per cent).
Motorcycles were involved in 86.01 per cent of the accidents, followed by trucks (6.17 per cent) and cars (2.76 per cent).
Nakhon Si Thammarat province recorded the highest number of road accidents (106) and saw the highest number of people getting injured (109), while Pathum Thani had the highest number of deaths (10).
No Songkran-related road accidents have been reported so far from five provinces.
The department added that during the Songkran holidays, 1,908 police checkpoints were set up nationwide with 59,389 officials working.
A total of 316,725 vehicles were stopped for inspection, while 65,549 motorists were charged with violating traffic laws, most of which were: driving without licence (15,631 people) and not wearing a helmet (15,201 people).
Interior Ministry deputy permanent secretary and director of Road Accident Prevention and Reduction Centre Atsit Samphantharat said that the centre would analyse the data and formulate suitable measures to reduce the risk of road accidents, in order to achieve the goal of having road accident-related deaths at fewer than 12 people per 100,000 population within 2027.