A 60-year-old municipality councillor who was driving a pickup truck faces charges after being involved in an accident with a train in Chumphon province on Saturday evening.
The councillor was seriously injured while his wife and another female relative had slight injuries when the train crashed into the rear of their pickup at 7.20pm, according to police.
Initial police investigation found that the pickup driver, Tambon Napho Pattana Municipality councillor Somboon Alawee, and his relatives were heading home from a monk ordination party. They reached a railway crossing at Ban Khao Suan Durian, where there was an alarm about an incoming train.
Somboon was suspected to have driven the pickup, evading the lowering railway crossing barrier, but the train crashed into his vehicle’s rear, investigator Pol Lt-Colonel Pattana Kongchang said. As the wounded persons’ relatives had collected and kept their personal documents along with the pickup’s dashboard camera, police would request such evidence as part of the investigation, Pattana said.
Police would initially file a charge of reckless driving resulting in injuries to many people and causing damage to state property, he said.
