Thai road carnage: Monthly death toll already 616 - Year total well past 6,000

[webfact]

Thai road carnage: Monthly death toll already 616 - Year total well past 6,000

 

Image: Daily News

 

The death toll at the scene of accidents in Thailand in 2020 now stands at 6,313.

 

In the first 16 days of June the toll is now 616 after 47 were added to the numbers on Tuesday. 

 

Despite a two month nighttime curfew the country looks well on the way to repeating last year's 14,907 at the scene deaths, notes Thaivisa. 

 

Daily News - who publish the figures every day in an effort to raise awareness - said in their half-hearted headline that drivers really ought to look to their left and right and not lose concentration.

 

This was the lesson to be learned after a Toyota Altis driver had to be cut out of their vehicle after a collision with a ten wheel truck in Thanyaburi heading towards Rangsit north of Bangkok. 

 

Picture: Daily News

 

According to Dr Thaejing Siripanich who heads a Thai anti drink driving group there were 13,956 fatalities at the scene of accidents in 2018. This rose to 14,907 in 2019 and is already 6,313 to date in 2020. 

 

Daily News said that 600 had died so far this month. We added up the figures and came to 616. 

 

DPM Prawit Wongsuwan said last year that he acknowledged that the death toll from all fatalities on the Thai roads each year is in excess of 20,000.

 

Image: Daily News

 

Most estimates put the figures at between 24,000 and 26,000 fatalities annually when deaths on the way to and subsequently in hospitals are added to the tally. 

 

In addition around one million people are maimed and otherwise injured each year, notes Thaivisa. 

 

Source: Daily News

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2020-06-17

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

[JCP108]

Apparently, this amount of deaths is more acceptible than having traffic laws and enforcement of them. 

[Misterwhisper]

Sigh. This country is hopeless. Even if the government would ban all road traffic, the shockingly inept drivers would still find a way to somehow kill each other off in droves, perhaps with plows, tractors and cattle carts in the rice fields or on backwater unpaved dirt tracks. 

[BobbyL]

Why is nothing ever done to start to correct these abhorrent stats? 69 people in one day is utterly unbelievable. It is like a daily terrorist attack in its numbers. 

[Forza2002]

Year on year the road fatality stats aren't getting any better so it would appear to be acceptable by the Govt. to have on average 40 people killed daily on the roads, and yet the country goes into economic meltdown over the deaths of a mere 58 mortals from CV19... ???? ????

[CNXexpat]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

that drivers really ought to look to their left and right and not lose concentration.

...and don´t drive drunk. 

[RichardColeman]

I'm beginning to think that the Thai Travel Safety dept. is run by all the people transferred to an Inactive post

[krbkk]

who's surprised?
most Thais drive without a brain, NULLAM CEREBRI
and act on the street as if they were alone. There are no other road users
in both flowing and parking traffic.

[outsider]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

Despite a two month nighttime curfew the country looks well on the way to repeating last year's 14,907 at the scene deaths, notes Thaivisa. 

 

Finally. Something not affected by the CVD19 pandemic. It is really mind-boggling how Thailand keeps these figures up despite there being less traffic on the road (apparently) during the curfew months.

 

[Greg O]

So the games begin even without the bars being open, there's an interesting stat..I'll bet they were wearing their masks though. Poor suckers. 

[jaiyen]

Back to the old normal !

[cyril sneer]

Monday death toll higher than other days as usual 

[ttrd]

2 hours ago, Forza2002 said:

Year on year the road fatality stats aren't getting any better so it would appear to be acceptable by the Govt. to have on average 40 people killed daily on the roads, and yet the country goes into economic meltdown over the deaths of a mere 58 mortals from CV19... ???? ????

Good point - wonder why the word dyscalculia came to my mind ... ????

[warcy]

The death toll of accidents is much greater than the death toll of Covid-19. I hope the government realize this.

[British Bulldog]

Yes, it didn't take long to catch up with the same old annual road death figures despite the couple of months where most people should have been off the streets and off the booze ???

[Odysseus123]

Although I sound like a broken record on this topic-the best guess by Asian Correspondent in 2015 was 80 fatalities per day.This is far more realistic than the whitewashed figures of the Gov't which derive theirs from Newton's 'Principia Mathematica' or some such tome..

 

There would be a slight trend downward over the last 3 months or so but they will be very enthusiastic in making up for lost time.

[smudger1951]

 

How do the Insurance companies cope with the number of claims for vehicles, personal injury and fatalities. Surely, this must affect premiums.

[grumbleweed]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

drivers really ought to look to their left and right and not lose concentration.

they do look left and right... when window shopping. However: they can't lose what they never had

[bbbbooboo]

Ummm..... maybe they should do something to reduce the carnage... or is it a case of you can’t fix stupidity?

[fxe1200]

18 minutes ago, warcy said:

The death toll of accidents is much greater than the death toll of Covid-19. I hope the government realize this.

Forget it, they are interested only in their bank slips from Singapore.

[natway09]

Not sure there is a lot of relevance between road deaths & the virus.

An interesting fact is that I once asked a rural police patrol on a very busy stretch of Highway 1 "why do you not have any mufti cops on the road ?"

Answer : It infringes on human rights.  My  Answer : Bulls  t

Real reason: No funding for fuel 

[finnomick1]

Can't blame the tourists.........or

[fxe1200]

12 minutes ago, smudger1951 said:

 

How do the Insurance companies cope with the number of claims for vehicles, personal injury and fatalities. Surely, this must affect premiums.

Yes, in my case the insurance company raised the premium from 14.000 to 17.000 THB, though I expected a no-claims bonus. T.I.T.

[lostmebike]

3 hours ago, BobbyL said:

Why is nothing ever done to start to correct these abhorrent stats? 69 people in one day is utterly unbelievable. It is like a daily terrorist attack in its numbers. 

Work-shy, inept, self-serving "poo yais" will never be able to create a safe, regulated and policed driving environment. 

Edited June 17, 2020 by lostmebike

[madmitch]

38 minutes ago, smudger1951 said:

 

How do the Insurance companies cope with the number of claims for vehicles, personal injury and fatalities. Surely, this must affect premiums.

No ridiculous liability payouts help keep the premiums low.

 

A motor accident quadraplegic might get a $10m payout in the USA, £1m in the UK, for example, not to forget the legal fees. Very different to what an accident victim might expect here in Thailand.

[phantomfiddler]

This will all change once they put in the planned rubber roads. Following any collision the parties will just bounce down the road until they come to a graceful stop ????

[PaDavid]

And the country was locked down for a virus which has killed around 60. 

[Hawkcarl]

Was at Makro Pattaya today for the weeklt shopping.

When walking down an ailse there was a woman walking beside me. She was not seeing where she was going, she was more interested in seeing what was available on the shelves. Eventually, she bumped her cart into my cart. And, she started to berate me that it was my fault bumping together and I should be a gentleman and give her a wide berth.

A bit later, I was walking towards the check-out counters, nearing the check-out area. A man was walking very fast to the check-out I was walking towards. He was obviously obsessed by cutting off anyone approaching the check-out as he count not care less if he crashed into someone.

If Thais cannot control a shopping cart; how on earth can it be expected that they can control a car???

[overt2016]

a broken record!!!

Thailand has enough road laws to lower this daily carnage, but 

1.. incompetent enforcement.

2.check points to squeeze funds.

3. no patrols on streets.

4. me first attitude

5. no knowledge of road rules

 

[hotchilli]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

The death toll at the scene of accidents in Thailand in 2020 now stands at 6,313.

Yet this is tolerated by the government... while 58 deaths shuts the country down?

Edited June 17, 2020 by hotchilli