Over 32,000 road accidents in Thailand in past two years
Thailand, dubbed one of the most dangerous countries for driving, saw a total of 32,190 road accidents in 2020 and 2021, mostly involving pickups, according to the Transport Ministry.
Thailand, which has been ranked as the second most dangerous country to drive in by a website, reported 21,052 accidents in 2020 and 11,138 accidents in 2021.
The Zutobi, which is a driver’s education portal website that publishes a new score annually, reported in May that Thailand scored badly on five different factors to rank it on second on the list of most dangerous nations to drive in.
The factors include estimated road death rates, maximum motorway speed limits, seat-belt wearing rates, alcohol-related deaths, and blood alcohol concentration (BAC) limits.
In its report in May, Zutobi ranked Thailand in second spot with 4.35 points, behind South Africa (3.41 points). The United States was third with 5.03 points.
According to the Ministry of Transport’s Data Catalogue, motorcycles did not cause the most accidents as many assumed but most accidents that happened in 2020 and 2021 involved pickup trucks (37 per cent), followed by a category of private and public vehicles (27 per cent).
Key interesting statistics from the ministry’s Data Catalogue include:
Types of vehicles in accidents:
- Pickups (37%)
- Private and public vehicles (27%)
- Motorcycles (20%)
- Trucks with at least 10 wheels (8%)
- Six-wheel trucks (6%)
- Vans (2%)
Types of roads where most accidents happened:
- Straight-ahead roads without slope (70%)
- Curves without slope (13%)
- Curves with slope (8%)
- Bridges to commercial venues (3%)
- Intersections (1%)
Types of accidents:
- Overturning on or skidding off straight-ahead roads (43%)
- Rear crash (31%)
- Overturning or skidding off curved roads (13%)
- Head-on crashes (5%)
- Crashing into traffic barriers (4%)
- Crashing at intersections (2%)
- Hitting pedestrians (2%)
Causes of accidents:
- Violation of speed limit (78%)
- Being cut in front by pedestrians, vehicles or animals (8%)
- Falling asleep behind wheel (4%)
- Drunk driving (3%)
- Violations of traffic lights or signs or vehicles malfunctioning (2%)
- Unlawfully overtaking other vehicles, not allowing vehicles on main road to pass first, or not familiar with roads (1%).
