Courts fully booked with drink driving cases
MOST CONVICTS put on probation by courts between last Thursday and this Tuesday, the so called holiday period, were punished for drink driving.
“Of all probation cases during those six days, 89.3 per cent, or 3,515 cases, were about drunk drivers,” Corrections Department director-general Prasarn Mahaleetrakul said yesterday.
He said all these convicted drunk drivers would also have to do community services and improve their behaviour.
“They must not repeat their offences,” Prasarn said.
He was speaking on the last of the “Seven Dangerous Days” associated with the New Year 2018.
As many as 3,456 road accidents occurred during the first six days of the holiday period, killing 375 people and injuring 3,612.
On Tuesday, which was the sixth day of the seven-day monitoring period, 400 road accidents occurred, killing 51 people and injuring 431.
Drunk-driving contributed to over 40 per cent of the accidents, while speeding accounted for a further 28.5 per cent.
Almost 80 per cent of the vehicles involved in road accidents were motorcycles.
Several road accidents also occurred yesterday. In Mahasarakham, a van carrying New Year holidaymakers back to Bangkok drove into a ditch, injuring the driver and 12 passengers, police said.
Police said the accident happened at 2.30am on a main road in Tambon Huay Eng in Mahasarakham’s Muang district.
The driver and passengers suffered from chest pains and bruises, and were sent to the Mahasarakham Hospital.
Passengers said they had hired the van to take them from Kalasin to Bangkok and left Kalasin at 8pm. At the time of the accident, most passengers were asleep.
Police believe the driver dozed off and the vehicle plunged into the ditch.
In another accident, five people were injured when a van from Praram 9 Hospital carrying donated human organs crashed into the concrete base of a communication switching cabinet in Ayutthaya early yesterday.
Police said the accident happened at 4am in Tambon Sanab Tueb in Wang Noi district.
The van driver, Somboon Vattanakit, told police that a car cut in front of his van and he swerved to the left and crashed into the concrete base on the roadside.
Somboon and four staff members of a medical team were injured. They were identified as Thawatchai Klinsukhon, Haruethai Sathanbua, Pussadee Wannarat and Sudarat Paengkaew.
The five were rushed to Wang Noi Hospital.
The team was taking donated organs from Chaiyaphum to Praram 9 Hospital when the accident occurred.
Source: Nation
