A lot of lives have been lost on Thai roads and the country clearly has road safety issues.
The WHO (World Health Organization) estimated that around 25 000 persons died in 2016 in road accidents in Thailand.
Deaths are widely caused by road users. In fact, the amount of motorcycles and tuk-tuks’ drivers and passengers killed on Thai road is on the raise.
Last year, out of the 80 people killed on Thai roads every day, 5500 of them were motorcycle drivers. These statistics are growing up despite governments’ action to try to stop that. The scariest part about these roads’ accidents is that they kill 2500 youngsters under twenty every year.
In 2017, A new report has ranked Thailand as having the world’s deadliest roads with a traffic road death rate of 36,2 per 100 000 people.
Every year, there are two very important periods regarding road’s accidents in Thailand : Songkran (Thai New Year) which lasts five days and the western New Year which is accounted in the statistics for five days too. Those are prolonged holidays which is synonym of departure for Thai people.
This year, the western NYE has caused 423 road casualties and around 4005 injuries caused by 3841 accidents. Last year had 478 road casualties and around 4120 injuries caused by 3919 road accidents. This period is considered highly dangerous in Thailand.
One of the main reason is probably that Thai people are not wearing helmets. Only 43% of motorcyclists wear it. Another factor is driving under the influence of alcohol which causes 26% of road accidents on Thai roads according to WHO.
Thailand definitely needs to improve traffic law regulations and also show more actions regarding road safety education.
