Road accidents down to fate, according 32% of Thai’s
Thais attending a conference on road safety were told that a recent survey indicated that a staggering 32% of adult respondents thought the road carnage was just their fate.
The conference also announced figures for the annual death toll that did not tally with other numbers claimed earlier in the week that threatened to put Thailand at the top of the tree of deaths around the world.
And the stats for people suffering handicaps was also completely at odds with previously announced figures.
Daily News said in their headline that 15,000 people were dying annually after a government conference was held. This represented 42 families a day losing a loved one.
But earlier in the week other agencies said the figure was at least 22,000 dead.
There were fears this would propel Thailand to be named as the most dangerous place in the world to drive.
Previous figures also spoke of a million handicapped and injured.
The latest conference talked of 5,000 handicapped as a result of accidents – or just 15 a day.
Attendees were also told that 2 billion baht was lost per year because of accidents. Again this was a fraction of previously announced figures.
The conference was organised by the government’s Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation under the chair of Chayaphon Thitisak.
The death toll was put at 15,488 in 2016.
But perhaps the most revealing statistics came from a survey conducted by Noppadol Kannika of “Superpoll” that asked Thai adults why there were so many road accidents.
While many mentioned driving conditions, road quality and poor drivers, 32.1% said it was just fate.
This however represented a drop from 2009 when more than half thought that way.
The October 2017 poll found that more than three quarters of the Thai population were closely affected by the carnage on the roads. That represents around 50 million people.
While 96.6% of respondents believed it was time that the government spent more on the issue.
The survey polled 1196 people in 15 provinces.
Nowhere in the Daily News article was the role of law enforcement, or the lack thereof, mentioned.
Source: Daily News
