Carnage on the Thai roads “even worse than you think” reports Thai media.
The Daily News has said that the death toll on the Thai roads is even worse than people think.
And that is bad enough with a big rise in fatalities in the first six months of this year compared to last year.
Daily News is running a campaign with several other agencies to try and do something about the carnage. So far their efforts are floundering – things are just going from bad to worse.
Now they have quoted a representative from a drink driving foundation partner in the campaign who said that the official figures don’t add up to the real number killed.
The official figures are just those “killed at the scene” of accidents said Thaejing Siriphanit.
The reality is much, much worse.
He added there were also “reporting irregularities” as some offices producing figures don’t work at the weekend and only report the latest deaths on Tuesdays.
The figures released so far this year make grim reading.
In the first six months of this year 6,712 people died at the scene of accidents nationwide. This compared to 5,308 in the same period in 2016.
That is 25% more deaths year on year.
Nationwide since the start of the year here are the stats for “dead at the scene”:
January 947 Averaging around 30/day
February 850 30/day
March 1,281 41/day
April 1,382 46/day
May 1,124 36/day
June 1,128 37/day.
So far in July the loss of life continues unabated: there were 710 deaths since July 1st with 36 yesterday.
Figures for April – when the authorities mounted their usual Songkran road safety campaigns – were the worst.
Thaivisa notes that Thailand has been named as the second worst country on earth for per capita road death. When deaths at hospitals are added to the figures the true state of the problem becomes more apparent.
Only war torn Libya trumps it.
Source: Thai Visa
