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Thailand has the deadliest roads in the world, new report claims


webfact

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Absence of enforcement and giving/selling license to anyone who shows up major factors. Common sense is also rather uncommon regarding driving I've noticed.

True there are more motorbikes, which would increase fatalities. Perhaps due in part to how the motorcycles are driven also a factor. Driving against the flow of traffic on wrong side of the road, failure to stop and look before going onto main roads, weaving in and out of traffic like it is some sort of video game, driving on sidewalks, and of course, lack of adequate helmet pump those numbers up

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4 hours ago, NoBrainer said:

According to their calculation (which is an estimate ,based on who knows what) the fatality rate is about 70 people per day.

That seems quite high, as even on the busiest 2 travel periods, New Years & Songkran, that is about the fatality rate during those periods.

Maybe those estimates were based on reported figures for those 2 holidays. The normal rate would be much lower.

 

As I have said before, they could cut that fatality rate in half, just by enforcing mandatory helmut use everywhere in the country, all of the time, by everybody on a motorcycle.

They would do this by way of massive fines and forfeiture of the motorcycles, of people not complying. Habits will change very quickly when it is announced that you will lose your motorcycle for 90 days, if caught riding without a helmut, and the first few hundred people that lose their bikes hit social media.

 

This could be achieved in 1 month, if they wanted to actually do it.

 

 

A minimum  fine  of 5,000baht for every first motoring offence plus the above would have instant results. Double up on repeat offenders

To those that say it is too high and the poor Thais could not afford it..........Nobody has to pay if they follow the laws!

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What a surprise. Having witnessed my Thai GF being taught by a Thai driving instructor. Send them back to the rice fields, and start over.

The Thai government is missing a great opportunity. Engage falangs as contract driving instructors. At least then, Thais will understand what a rear vision mirror is for.

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7 hours ago, Kieran00001 said:

What happened to Libya?  On the last World Atlas list they had Libya at a rate double that of Thailand's, this time they are not even on the list, and it is only a matter of months between the lists being released, its difficult to imagine that Libya has turned things around so dramatically, seems more likely they have not submitted their statistics and remain at the top.

 

Pillock, there was a civil war on when the figures where collected on Libya’s road deaths. Obviously the rate was high due to a war ! 

 

 

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I am hoping that this is not a Government recommended solution........it's absolutely diabolical!  There is only one solution.  Get the Police out on the roads and make sure they do their job of stopping people committing the myriad of traffic offences and when people are caught, they should be dealt with by the Courts, not some piddling little fine by a local bobby, which will possibly be pocketed by him/her.  Police on the Streets, not sat on their fat bums in air conditioned offices.

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Up here in the north 15-20 % have no license plates so even if they are captured by camera they get away. 

 

In Europe all vehicles have their light on when on the road. Here I see school buses with no light in very thick fog and also quite late in the evening.

 

Yes, police must start working, that is the biggest problem.

 

 

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Where would one get these signs,  " Photo in Car "?

Maybe better signs for Thai drivers would be...  " Fool in Car",  or " Bad Driver in Car".

I have had cameras in all my cars and bikes since 2007.

Where is the insurance discount for drivers with cameras in their cars?

I just think this is another blurb for someone who needs to say something and do nothing. 

Bla bla bla again.

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5 hours ago, webfact said:

The cameras would help to discourage traffic violations as motorists would know that the chances of being caught on video were heightened, while footage could be posted on social media, leading to public condemnation that would be worse than legal punishment, he said.

 

“If all cars on Thai roads had cameras, traffic law violations would be greatly reduced,” he added.

 

Perhaps looking at this through my pessimistic eyes,  but this reads like, 'we will wait for the public to post on social media and then try to find the people in the wrong'. Sorry, dash-cams are not preventative, they will only present evidence after the fact for a prosecution. 

 

The threat of "maybe being seen" doesn't cut it IMO. A small step in the right direction, but until people know and understand the highway code, and traffic laws are properly controlled, gimmicks like this will only profit those selling dash cams.

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5 hours ago, webfact said:

 

 

5 hours ago, webfact said:

“Various measures have been implemented in the past 20 years to boost road safety but they weren’t so successful because Thais know what actions break the law but do them anyway as they have become conceited after not getting caught,” Taejing said.

You can't get caught if there is no law enforcement. It's not conceit, it is a fact of life on the highway.

The various measures only work if there is someone around to penalize. 

 

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I am not sure if this ranking is taking in consideration that Thailand is a small country with over 70 million people and with most main roads crossing urban areas. Looks like Russian drivers are not the best, and driving on icing roads multiply the risk. For some reason dash cameras are mandatory in Russia. By personal experience, and specially to foreigners, dash cameras are a must. Save me of a lot of troubles in few small accidents with motorbikes, and the insurance company and the police changes attitude just knowing that the situation was recorded. Cheap solution for big problems. May sound too much but I have 3 cameras intalled on my car. A lot of fun too watching it after vacation trips. With a good memory card can tape up to continous 4 hours before overlaping files.

I also have a solar power bank to make the cameras portable, with powered up to 6 hours, to use on tracking and motorcycles. Great toy!

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2 hours ago, jenny2017 said:

If teachers at "well- known" high schools do not teach about road safety ( because they don't really know it, or don't want to know it and boy scout is much more interesting) and they watch students speeding on campus without saying something, I'm afraid that the education of Kindergarten kids on how to prevent accidents doesn't make sense. 

 

Going out on a limb here, but throughout my entire education years, I cannot recall even once being told anything about road safety by any 'educational' teachers throughout that time. It was not their jobs, they were not qualified to do it.

 

Note: I am not talking about crossing the road in a safe manner, I am talking about road safety from a driver's perspective, which is where the root cause of the problems lies.

 

The same should hold true for Thailand. If the government is serious about addressing the problems on their roads, then they should have travelling workshops to spread the word to those that actually drive on the roads. As jenny2017 states, teaching kindergarten kids about responsibilities of drivers makes no sense.

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8 hours ago, Kieran00001 said:

What happened to Libya?  On the last World Atlas list they had Libya at a rate double that of Thailand's, this time they are not even on the list, and it is only a matter of months between the lists being released, its difficult to imagine that Libya has turned things around so dramatically, seems more likely they have not submitted their statistics and remain at the top.

 

Here we go again finger pointing towards someone else, the country is at war and ieds and ak47s kill most there, not insure nutters blame other types

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5 hours ago, webfact said:

road safety advocates and police are backing a proposal that would see as many as 80 per cent of cars equipped with dashboard cameras and carrying “Photo in Car” stickers to discourage violations.

Cameras would do no more than they do now - record violations. Common sense is what would discourage violations. And common sense is what the majority of Thai motorists lack.

 

I suppose the idea of compelling motorists, who fall foul of the law on three occasions, to take, and pass, a much more stringent test, with a retake required if they are stopped for breaking the law on three further occasions, and driving without a licence made a potentially imprisonable offence, with in-lieu financial penalties upwards of five figures, would be too much of a cerebral stretch for the authorities to consider?

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16 minutes ago, Muzarella said:

Thailand is a small country with over 70 million people and with most main roads crossing urban areas. Looks like Russian drivers are not the best, and driving on icing roads multiply the risk.

Britain is a smaller country with close to the same population. As for Thais driving on icy roads ...

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1 minute ago, wakeupplease said:

Here we go again finger pointing towards someone else, the country is at war and ieds and ak47s kill most there, not insure nutters blame other types

 

Not finger pointing just curious as to why they are not on their list this time, they have topped the list since before the war, it actually reduced during it, people just don't drive as much, and ieds and ak47's have nothing to do with road traffic accident deaths, nor are they a leading cause of death in Libya, war is the 15th highest cause of death, way behind traffic accidents which is the 3rd highest cause, and which is also way behind the leading cause, heart disease, which been killing 20 times as many as the war.

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1 hour ago, chrisinth said:

The threat of "maybe being seen" doesn't cut it IMO. A small step in the right direction, but until people know and understand the highway code, and traffic laws are properly controlled, gimmicks like this will only profit those selling dash cams.

I could collect hours of driving violations on camera but if I gave them to the police would they actually write any tickets? They'd probably just laugh at me and go back to watching TV.

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