Thailand #1 on road death ranking list

[Marcosteffano]

Thing is for every moron that's taken out by Darwin 2 more new ones hop on scooters/cars the next day.i blame the banks/finance companies for arming these terrorist.my step sons one of them.hes spent more time in a hospital bed than on the road.his new Honda cub had less than 500km on it and is now being recycled into baked bean tins.i refused to help get him a scooter because it would of been my fault.poor old grandpa worked really hard and paid 45,000b for a 2 week ride.would of been cheaper for him to use taxis.the son is now semi paralysed in one leg and his passenger was in a coma.oh and 15 yrs old,no licence,no insurance,no helmets.nuff said.

[stattointhailand]

I deleted about 3 paragraph rant in this post, about more morning mayhem caused this time by an aggressive driver with Bangkok plates tailgating and crazy weaving for advantage against all cars in our zone, with mixed yet nearly deadly results along various parts of the ring road.

So instead of an endless rant about something that will never change and only get worse as Udon grows yet Thailand stays immature, -we decided to take action to adapt. The ring road just not the place for us and our tiny little kids any more.

I sat down with the wife and a map today to create an anti-ring-road route.

Wife scouted the routes I mapped by checking first on her motorbike & came back to verify which route our small car could easily make. It's trickier than it sounds because the part of Udon we go to from inside town isn't very developed. Yet we found some connector roads.

Yet it only took us 10-15 more minutes to get the morning school drop off done, with only one small bit of ring road involved, and got to see much more of the real Udon.

And all done amongst the usual throng of locals at pleasant and safe speeds, who all have their kids too. Like minds who are more risk averse.

I'm older now, and am glad to have rid us from this twice daily experience with danger.

And the wife and I somehow made this adaptation without any arguments or misunderstandings that get confused as being arguments.

Goodbye crazy ring road, see you all on the slow n easy streets.

Good luck with that Jimjay. I hope your alternate routes do not include any backroads in the Ban Don Wai area, as the Beer/Whiskey/Lao Khao seems to have a very high accident rate in that area from very early in the morning (6am onwards)

[jimjay]

It's gone fine again. Only 10 actual minutes more. 80% less danger.

The Ban Don Wai area you refer to is well out of town right?

I'd still rather get my driver side mirror clipped, or run over a drunk or get crashed into by one doing 30kph down a narrow soi, than getting run off the road or into the median doing 100-100kph. Or worse, getting vaporized by a speeding multi-ton dual bed cargo truck driven by the usual yaba or red bull inebriated worker who'd flee the scene back to his village afterwards.

Glad we solved it. Anything that makes things more sabai here is fine by me.

[Drunk Monkey]

This has been mentioned before i think bt ... there are numerous combined reasons way Thailand has now reached the number one spot ... in truth they have probably been there for a lot longer but the way the road deaths figures were calculated in the past meant this wasnt gonna happen .. ie deaths at the scene , in transit to hospital and there after death in hospital due to the accident . Now i believe this has changed and all the above are factored in hence the sudden n very sad shot to infamy and No 1 .

We are based on a very busy ring rd airport junction and there isnt a day goes by without some kind of minor or serious accident from a basic rear end shunt to a full on smash as was the case last night .

I travel / drive around the country a lot ..too much for my liking nowadays and see some incredible things scary stuff by motor bikes to huge 18 wheelers doing crazy moves vehicles across the whole spectrum even pedestrians bin dipping the main motorways central reservation n hard shoulders with no regard to there surroundings and the danger they are in .

Just how to rectify this is open to conjecture but as a starting point i agree with Pal52 in his earlier post .

DM

[jimjay]

So an update on this new "slow route" we established after ditching the insanity of the ring road.

Keep in mind the phrase ".d4mn3d. if you do, .d4mn3d. if you don't. The slow route can be just as deadly.

We were slowly crawling through the back sois and come upon one of the many "blind" turns. On these I creep out inch by inch, and try to look for signs from locals looking on, if anything is approaching that they can see that we can't. Though some of them seem to enjoy carnage so it's not like they'd warn us. I creep out more, and to everyone's shock, including the locals, two sporty motorbikes go by going 50/60kph down the narrow soi, 3 young teens on each. They were racing after school at extreme speed. Hard to believe speed.

I'd already started to roll out before they zipped in front for a narrow miss. It was only a foot from them contacting the front bumper and it being all over for them. The second bike would have either careened right, into a cement pole, along with the first one, or basically disintegrated right through our car's frame, through me, my wife and child. So almost 2-8 deaths in fraction of a second. It would have been a real gory mess, like in the local news at 11 headlines.

The locals seemed just as stunned as we were. But we know if the kids would have died, -with no dash cam in our car, it would have taken as long as the alert went to their relatives about the smash up, to start the locals toward blaming us, had any of us lived. I've already seen pics of what it looks like when a motorbike goes through a small to medium size car like ours.

Glad I took it as slow as I do. It must seem annoying to the wife when I'd been doing it before. But now she's all in. Continue with the slow creeping format, because it's GUARANTEED someone's going to fly across our path, period.

Buying a dash cam this weekend. Any recommendations on models or stores to buy them from?

I don't want to order online. Literally looking for something plug & play or even installed custom whatever if you know an auto shop that does this. Might even get one for the rear view since quite a bit of mayhem happens there too.

[Doodoo]

There is no one reason for Death on the roads of Thailand and I am by no means an expert on how to solve the issue but suggestions are sometimes helpful.
To start one needs to understand the issues, agree on them and then act. Once this is done one has to go back and see if the correct outcome was obtained and if not fix the problem(s) it has created.
So, to start with is to identify the issues which cause or contribute to accidents on the roads of any country.

1) Improper building codes allowing structures to be built up around intersections to disallow proper vision for vehicles
2) Signs to be installed any where again to disallow proper vision
3) Non use of indicators when changing lanes or turning corners
4) Not teaching in Driver Education for drivers to check their BLIND SPOT prior to changing lanes ( I know this for a fact as I am trying to teach my wife about this after she went through Drivers Education)
5) Teaching individuals how to walk into traffic rather than with traffic
6) Speeding
7) Not following the White Lines
Tailgating
9) Using improper lanes for travel
10) Vehicles safety checks for Brakes, ALL lights working on vehicle, bumpers available, tires and wear, etc
11) Road maintenance (no pot holes)
12) People driving vehicles/motorbikes who are not licensed and in the case of individuals being far too young have their guardians ticketed and/or vehicles removed for the infractions
13) Benefit the Police Officers for finding such infractions and dealing with them (How is another question)
14) Put more Officers on the roadways and again benefit them with amount of travel each day (How is another question)

Hope this will be picked up by individual(s) who can help the citizens of Thailand
Again hope this helps
Doodoo

[newtovillagelife]

Thais don’t care about foreigners opinions. They will figure it out in time, as more reach middle class status, and decide thier lives now have some value. Remember when surrounded by idiots, it is folly to be wise.

[fdimike]

Sorry to disagree with you but far too many Thais become idiots once on any sort of motor vehicle. Causes? Lack of manners/consideration for others and of course NO LAW ENFORCEMENT on a regular basis.

[Doodoo]

No need to apologize Mike. Disagreement is always welcome if used in a constructive manner. Calling people names will never remedy anything or anyone.
If you continue to call someone an Idiot or being Stupid they will agree and go on their merry way. This attitude on anyone's part is destructive rather than constructive.

Again hope this helps

[fdimike]

I'm not calling anyone an idiot but I am describing their actions - acting like idiots. They are inconsiderate and care little about anyone else on the road.
I maintain that the real solution is to get law enforcement out there doing their job 24/7 and not just during the holidays. You can easily see what I'm talking about by going out onto the roads at around 7:00AM. You'll see hundreds of people on motorbikes with about 1 or 2% wearing a helmet, with some even carrying one in their basket or in their hand. Ask them why they're not wearing a helmet? I can guarantee you'll be told "no Police". Do they know it's wrong? Do they know it's unsafe? Sure they do but they ignore the rules because there is no one there enforcing the rules. Thais are not alone in this area because I can see most farangs riding motorbikes without a helmet as well. Monkey see monkey do. Some of the worst offenders are students who care little about obeying the rules. Why because they know the police are hardly ever around.
Its the same in front of the General Hospital. Do they know it's illegal to double and triple park? Sure they do but they don't care because they're inconsiderate and they know the police are not out there enforcing the parking rules on a regular basis. We have well marked blue bike lanes with lots of clearly written (with pictures for those who cannot/will not read) signage throughout the city which have become parking lanes for those too lazy to walk another 10 meters to park in an area marked for cars. Do they care? No. Why? See above for the answer.
This is the prime reason Thailand ranks #1 in vehicle deaths - lack of REGULAR law enforcement. Additionally, the traffic fines need to be raised substantially in order to get peoples attention as well. I suspect we'll witness lots of blood and gore on the highways during the coming holidays. I's have to say that's idiotic behavior in my book.

[fatbob]

Personally I cant see how Thailand has the number one spot, I think there are a lot of country's not in the poll, I have spent time working in India and Indonesia, those two country's are heaps worse just to name two, sorry but I don't believe Thailand has the real number 1 spot.

[fdimike]

I believe it's computed as a % of the population and computed by the United nations World Health Organization. This may explain the problem a little better.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38660283

[Barney]

Thailand may not be number 1 but the article mentions 2 survey and 1 is from the WHO which had 120 counties on the list which Thailand came 2nd.
Doesn't matter where they are on any survey the fact that 50 or 60 are dying every day is just not acceptable in any sane persons thinking.
The article has a suggestion by the drunk driving minister or what ever his title is, that dash cams will help. What a load of BS.
Problems is where do you start. 2 biggest killers will be helmets and drink driving and, now with the new cars and bigger bikes available speeding must be catching fast. No pun intended.
The Thai govt's over many years have failed the Thai people by not enforcing existing laws.
I like others reporting here have worked in some very dangerous road usage countries and those to me seem more dangerous but maybe the stats don't lie. It would depend on how each country is transparent in reporting.
I was in Bangladesh for 18 months and they were dreadful drivers. Larger numbers dead there would be attributed to the fact they don't drink.

[parrot]

Today's accident near Central (across from the PTT gas station) didn't result in serious injury........but is notable because of the age of motorcycle driver (13) and the type of bike (bigger than a 125cc). I don't see a helmet in any of the 35 or so photos.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =3&theater

There's a short video interview of the boy where he reports his age as 13
https://www.facebook.com/191NewsUdon

Any takers on the translation of the gas tank "ไม่ซิ่งก็ตุ๊ด"

[Doodoo]

And with the boy being 13 years of age and an underage driver then one of two things should happen. The bike was stolen and therefore the 13 year old should be help accountable OR the owner of the bike should be charged with allowing an underage non licensed individual for riding the bike.
Chose ones poison

[fdimike]

I would think the parents should be brought into this. I would just love to be a fly on the wall if that ever did happen.

Unfortunately, he's just one of many here in UT. Parents don't care, teachers don't care and the police certainly don't care either. Let's see I know the powers to be will erect more signs saying 100% with a pic of a safety helmet. No sense in having the police do some policing now is there?

Worldatlas rates Thailand as #1: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the ... dents.html

WHO rates Thailand as #2: http://www.searo.who.int/thailand/areas/roadsafety/en/

[pal52]

The attitude of the 13 year old says everything.
When he talks to the police who ask him his age he is too busy on his phone either playing games or whatever.
He has no respect for the police or the laws he has broken & probably expects his parents to pay for damages & fines.
He could not care less.

[jimjay]

Today's accident near Central (across from the PTT gas station) didn't result in serious injury........but is notable because of the age of motorcycle driver (13) and the type of bike (bigger than a 125cc). I don't see a helmet in any of the 35 or so photos.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid ... =3&theater

There's a short video interview of the boy where he reports his age as 13
https://www.facebook.com/191NewsUdon

Any takers on the translation of the gas tank "ไม่ซิ่งก็ตุ๊ด"

Mai Sing Gaw Dtoot.

My wife just got home she translates it as "If you not racing like man you are a Katooey"

It's got a Facebook page and artwork stickers: https://www.facebook.com/pg/Wittaya.aot/photos/ Seems like a bike racing club.

That's a heavy bike. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_YZF-R3

300+ pounds. 320cc.

Show to have bad braking:

The bike has the ability to reach 0–60 km/h (0–37 mph) in less than 3 seconds, and 0–100 km/h (0–62 mph) in 5.5 seconds.[12] The 2015 R3 has a braking distance of 131.5 feet from 100–0 km/h (62–0 mph). While Indian reviewers praised the handling, same cannot be said for some western world reviewers. According to some reviewers, the braking system is not powerful enough to match the engine power, and is also prone to fishtailing under hard braking (non ABS).

[parrot]

"ไม่ซิ่งก็ตุ๊ด"

Mai Sing Gaw Dtoot.

My wife just got home she translates it as "If you not racing like man you are a Katooey"

Katooey being generally accepted as 'trans'.....I think the idea is more along the lines of 'if you don't race, you're gay'


As for the boy being interviewed by 'police', although I never saw the interviewer's face in the video, I'd guess he was a reporter. And the boy was polite enough to answer ครับผม with his responses. As for having a phone glued to his face, I'd just assume he's calling his older brother the bad news about his (older brother's) bike.

[jeebeeg]

To 747man, and drivers in Thailand;
Land Traffic Act,1979, Title 6, Section 71;
The vehicle on the left side has a right of way.