Road Accidents and Death Down Nearly Half from 2019 Songkran Holiday

Thailand’s Road Safety Director Centre has said 192 people have been killed and 1,818 injured so far during the Songkran holiday. Thirty-seven people died in road accidents during the Songkran holiday on Wednesday.

On Wednesday there were 330 road accidents with 328 people and 37 deaths, some of whom died in hospitals.

Since the country was in lockdown during the Songkran holiday last year, the Road Safety Director Centre, has used data from 2019 as a comparison purposes this year.

Based on these figures, the numbers of accidents, deaths and injuries dropped over 50% across the board.

Of 1,795 accidents over the past five days, Nakhon Si Thamarat accounted for 76, followed by Chiang Mai (63), Songkhla (49) and Surat Thani (49).

In terms of deaths, Bangkok, Khon Kaen and Pathum Thai led with eight each, followed by Chon Buri (7), Chiang Mai (7) and Sakhon Nakhon (6).

Once again Drunk Driving was the main cause of the accidents over the past five days, accounting for 39.6% of all accidents, followed by speeding (27%). The top three provinces for drink-driving cases were Chaiyaphum (290), Chiang Rai (264) and Buri Ram (251).

From April 10 to 14, there were 3,743 car accident-related court cases, mostly involving drink-driving at 99.66% (3,730 cases), followed by drug-driving at 0.29% (11 cases) and reckless-driving at 0.05% (2 cases)

Like in past years, motorcycles continued to be the type of vehicles most involved in the accidents during the festival, at 79.3%, followed by pickup trucks (6.6%) and passenger cars (3.6%).

Over the past five days, most accidents occurred on highways (65.7%) and from 4pm to 8pm (30.3%). Most of the people who were injured or killed in road accidents were those aged 50 or more (23.5%).