More youngsters dying in road accidents

[webfact]

More youngsters dying in road accidents

By THE NATION 

 

Neither parents nor their children wear helmets as they make their way to Na Luang School in Bangkok’s Thung Khru district yesterday. The school has more than 3,000 students.

 

Parents urged to insist on helmets or have kids take safe school buses

 

ROAD ACCIDENTS kill more than 17,000 children and teenagers in Thailand every year, the latest statistics show. And most of these fatalities involve motorcycles, Road Safety Policy Foundation’s manager Thanapong Jinwong said yesterday. 

 

Hence, Kongsak Chuenkrailas, who works for the Foundation for Consumers’ public-vehicle safety project, has cautioned parents against buying motorcycles for their teenagers. 

 

“We need to educate parents about the risk of motorcycles. Children should be encouraged to use proper school buses instead,” he said. 

 

Thanapong said statistics compiled by the police, the Public Health Ministry and the Road Accident Victims Protection Company show that 17,634 children on average had died annually from road accidents between 2013 and 2017. 

 

“These statistics also reveal that the number of road-accident victims aged between 10 and 19 years has been rising,” he said, adding that most of the accidents usually took place during the summer break as well as long holidays such as the New Year or Songkran break. 

 

A representative of Ramathibodi Hospital’s Child Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention Centre said many children died while riding pillion on motorcycles within their own communities. 

 

Many motorcyclists often ignore the law and choose not to wear a helmet for short rides near their home.

 

School-bus project

 

In order to avoid such mishaps, Kongsak said parents should consider putting their children’s names down for safe school buses. 

 

“We have now implemented the school-bus project in 32 provinces,” he noted, adding that many safe school buses now in service have not been registered with the Land Transport Ministry because they did not meet the standards. 

 

“We need to raise parents’ awareness that the wrong choice of school bus is also a threat to their children’s safety,” he said. 

 

Chissanuwat Maneesrikham, who heads a panel on road-|accident prevention in the Central region, said his team has already nudged child-care centres to |push for the use of crash helmets among children by having helmets ready. 

 

“We are now expanding this initiative to primary schools too,” he said. 

 

According to Chissanuwat, crash helmets will be lent to children if their parents forget to bring one along for their kids.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30369535

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2019-05-17

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[Inn Between]

Perhaps if laws were enforced with fines escalating in price for each subsequent infraction, the situation would work itself out. Everyday we can see underage kids who obviously have no license and wearing no helmet ride by cops who seem to forget what their job is supposed to be.

 

So, my message to the Thai cops is to start doing their jobs and save some lives. 

 

[stanleycoin]

All hot air.

Thailand does not care about it's citizens on the roads.

The figure of around 25,000 dead every year and christ knows how many disabled for life. is the proof. 

You should be ashamed of yourselves. 

 

 

[Inn Between]

I think the only way the Thai gov't is going to get serious about enforcing helmets is if some big shot's kid dies as result of not wearing one. But the rich don't ride around on scooters, so that's not going to happen. 

 

[sammieuk1]

That's 48 kids a day slaughtered all day everyday aided by a useless inept bunch of morons masquerading as a government????

[a977]

46 minutes ago, sammieuk1 said:

That's 48 kids a day slaughtered all day everyday aided by a useless inept bunch of morons masquerading as a government????

You mean masquerading as a Police force don't you.  Too busy counting the contents of brown envelopes to care about their children, bet if it was one of their kids killed it would be a different story. 

[Andre0720]

“We need to educate parents about the risk of motorcycles. Children should be encouraged to use proper school buses instead,” he said. 

This is so much of a silly comment. The need to educate... There are some pre-requisites to this: Become civilised, meaning having moral values, such as caring for other people's life and well being, become responsible, taking responsibility for one's own actions, having a system of coercion conducive to these pre-requisites.

So why not looking at some systems that farang countries have developed, Enacting laws, enforcing them, applying hefty penalties for not complying etc.

 

An indian Guru had a teaching about responsibility. Explaining that responsibility, means ability to respond.

If one has the ability to respond to a situation, and does not, this or these individuals are responsible for the outcome.

 

Now we read that 'the Public Health Ministry and the Road Accident Victims Protection Company show that 17,634 children on average had died annually from road accidents between 2013 and 2017.'

 

Now who would be responsible for that? Who could respond to that and does not? Who is responsible for all these deaths?

Now we are back to pre-requisite number one, becoming civilised, having moral values, feeling heartbroken when someone dies, adult or child, and thinking that more most be done to stop this carnage... Anyone who could have responded by taking action to reduce the speed of vehicles on the roads, and did not. Etc etc etc.

 

[gunderhill]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

more than 17,000 children and teenagers

so thats 46 a  day and the other 20 as I thought it was  about 65 a  day that normally die  will be adults and car /lorry  occupants.

Way to go Thailand

[gunderhill]

And  in those  buses  the kids are never  hanging out of the windows and all have seat belts on?

Round here its a very knackered prehistoric  clapped out  minivan  ,  look s  like an ex  taxi shuttle van but its totally scrap, more rust than van, BUT he does drive round with the stupid Dalek flashers on permanently on the roof, that's safety for ya!

Why not commandeer  those stupid new  trucks you bought from "Merica"

[ezzra]

If a government that has a police force who sees a motorcycle on its way to school every morning with 4 young kids hanging for dear life or a beat up pickup overloaded with workers and turned a blind eye and does nothing about it, who are we to complain?...

[Lingba]

Thanks to irresponsible and incompetent parents as well as a spineless gov't that is incapable of properly enforcing basic traffic laws and harshly penalizing those that break the laws.

[Dmaxdan]

I always drive my grandson to school. We are a rarity here in that we strap him into an actual child's car seat. There is an option for him to travel to school on one of those school minibuses but I'm not happy simply because the kids are crammed in like sardines and apart from the driver there is no adult supervision.


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[Lungstib]

Parents dont just refuse to be responsible they encourage their kids by letting them practice at 10 years old, then finally loan them the bike. Schools do nothing to stem these death numbers by ignoring the fact that kids are riding to school without licenses or helmets. If the police sent one officer to a different school one day of the week and actually started the educational process thats needed to stop this it would be far better than having them stand or sit around at a gold shop drinking tea. Sadly there is no social conscience, nobody thinks its their job to do something. Thailand at its worst.

[RotBenz8888]

We actually moved to the closest condo to our kids school, only to avoid the traffic hell. But we still have to cross one road twice a day. 3 guards with red flags, and one policeman at the zebra crossing, but it's still everything but safe. There obviously has to be a serious accident before they build that footbridge we've been asking for...

[arithai12]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

have kids take safe school buses

sorry, which safe buses?

[richard_smith237]

21 minutes ago, Dmaxdan said:

I always drive my grandson to school. We are a rarity here in that we strap him into an actual child's car seat. There is an option for him to travel to school on one of those school minibuses but I'm not happy simply because the kids are crammed in like sardines and apart from the driver there is no adult supervision.


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A good example of someone who cares...

 

 

So... there's kids riding to school without a helmet on their own motorcycle at 12 yrs old. 

Then there's the kids at the same age with a helmet - slightly better off with regards to safety.

Then there's the kids with an adult riding, no helmets.

Then there's the kids with an adult riding, with helmets.

Then there's the kids in the back of a pickup

Then there's the kids in the a mini-van without seat-belts

Then there's the kids in a car driven by a parent without seat-belts or a child seat

 

Only then do we get to the responsible level of Parents driving their kids to school in vehicles with car seats and / or seatbelts...   I see so many kids in cars without seatbelts / car seats.. 

 

The only explanation is that the education and safety culture is purely absent - those in positions of decision making power simply don't care to ensure the masses are aware of the risk they are placing their children at. 

 

 

Its difficult for some as economics comes in to it and some families can't afford a car etc.. and thus the motorcycle is the only way if they are not on a convenient bus or mini-van route - But, these parents still don't get their kids a reasonable helmet... it seems insane. 

[neeray]

This is a "top down" problem. The remedy must start at the very top but he doesn't give a rat's ......... about it.

[PatOngo]

And they harp on about national reputation! If this is not the greatest blight on national reputation, I don't know what is!

[mike787]

Nothing will change...look how long this has been going on.  Really.  You think they care, they would have stopped long time ago....but NO!!!! 

[AhFarangJa]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

“We have now implemented the school-bus project in 32 provinces,” he noted, adding that many safe school buses now in service have not been registered with the Land Transport Ministry because they did not meet the standards. 

 

If the safe school buses do not meet the criteria then how can they be part of the project ?????????

Once again we have a bureaucrat sitting on his fat behind spouting sound bites from his plush office dreaming up grandiose schemes that always fail before they start. If they know of these unsafe buses then why have they not gone out and taken them out of service....impound them, and fine the drivers for negligence..............sorry.......forgot where I was for a moment there......... 

[atyclb]

3 hours ago, Inn Between said:

I think the only way the Thai gov't is going to get serious about enforcing helmets is if some big shot's kid dies as result of not wearing one. But the rich don't ride around on scooters, so that's not going to happen. 

 

 

me thinks if 100 rich kids die nothing will change because compounding lack of education, awareness, safety and critical thinking is a largely apathetic incompetent society.

[stanleycoin]

You would think that,   they would take more care of there retirement funds.

Just goes to show, the true lack of care of just the parents or guardians.

Disgraceful.

[graemeaylward]

I was at Mahasarakam University 2 days ago sitting in my car waiting. There were hundreds of students rushing about on motorcycles some "3 up"! So I decided to count the number without helmets, just to while away the time. Out of the 200 motorcyclist and pillions that I counted only 19 were wearing helmets! Less than 10%!!! And these are university students whom one would hope would be amongst the brightest in society. Obviously not!!!


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[Youlike]

3 hours ago, Inn Between said:

Perhaps if laws were enforced with fines escalating in price for each subsequent infraction, the situation would work itself out. Everyday we can see underage kids who obviously have no license and wearing no helmet ride by cops who seem to forget what their job is supposed to be.

 

So, my message to the Thai cops is to start doing their jobs and save some lives. 

 

Or stop paying the cops if they don't do their job.

[helloagain]

3 hours ago, Inn Between said:

Perhaps if laws were enforced with fines escalating in price for each subsequent infraction, the situation would work itself out. Everyday we can see underage kids who obviously have no license and wearing no helmet ride by cops who seem to forget what their job is supposed to be.

 

So, my message to the Thai cops is to start doing their jobs and save some lives. 

 

I quite agree. NEVER enough cops around in school holidays. Theres so much i could say but better not. NOBODY cares. More interested in shafting retirees

[Andre0720]

3 minutes ago, Youlike said:

Or stop paying the cops if they don't do their job.

Reminds me of a book that I read years ago. 'Reinventing government'.

It describes how failure is being rewarded in our society. The more crime there is for example, the more money will be invested in police resources. Should be the opposite, increase in crimes, less investment in something that yields no results.

Less crime, more investment into something that works....

[Uptooyoo]

Seems to me the problem isn't so much driving motorcycles, but the massive number of cars recently  introduced to roads that weren't designed for them. Also, untrained drivers, who have given up two wheels for four, are careening down the road in massive pick-up trucks as though they are still twisting the throttle. Helmet-less mothers and children are hardly to blame for the recent carnage. They are commuting to school as they have been for decades before the introduction of cars and trucks in large numbers. Maybe cars and trucks should be taxed at a higher rate to pay for the damage caused. 

[thailand49]

This is the factory of death!  The government and the police have made an exception to allow kids to take motorbikes to school or parents to deliver or pick them up because they need to get to school. Thinking they are doing Thai a favor when they are doing is contributing to the problem. 

Solution for start!  Chan o Cha needs to declare Section 44 and give the fix to someone outside of being Thai with full authority to remove anyone who stands in the way of saving lives! It can be fixed but not by a Thai or Thailand!

[Nowisee]

The police FARCE here is owned and operated by clowns, so forget about any resolution that involves clowns.  

I sorta agree that parents are at the forefront to educating their kids... but damn, look around at that genetic pool.... no lifeguard.

 

[alanrchase]

The other day I watched a neighbors kid getting ready to set off somewhere with his sister on a motorbike. He had a helmet but spent an age trying to work out how best to carry it. There was some stuff in the front basket so he was worried the helmet may fall out. Holding it on the handlebars seemed awkward. The one thing he never considered was wearing it.