Day one of Thailand’s road safety campaign has seen 37 deaths and 351 injuries recorded. Speeding and drunk driving were the primary causes of most accidents.
The province with the most road accidents is Lamphun in northern Thailand. Most of the deaths were reported in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, and the injured victims were mostly in the southern province of Surat Thani. Specific figures for individual provinces were not described in the reports.
The road safety campaign to reduce the number of road accidents during the new year holiday began in earnest on 29th December and will go on until January 4, traditionally a time when Thai people travel to their home provinces to meet their families.
The Highway Police Division reported that they had already issued over 110,000 traffic tickets against the speeding driver even before the campaign even started.
Despite the huge number of road checkpoints at more than 3,700 spots across the country, the number of road accidents does not seem to meet expectations. The accident statistics for the first day of the campaign were launched this morning. More than 300 accidents were reported all over the country, 351 people were injured, and 37 victims were killed.
The Deputy Minister of the Interior Ministry, Chotnarin Kirdsom, revealed that the primary causes of the accidents were speeding (41.55%) and drunk driving (23.50%). Motorcycles were involved in the most accidents, accounting for more than 80% of all accidents.
The deputy minister added that the accidents mostly occurred between 6pm to 7pm and the majority of victims were people aged 30 to 39 years old.
