Road fatalities hit 128 on first 3 of Thailand’s ‘7 dangerous days’
The first three of the New Year break’s so-called “seven dangerous days” saw 128 people killed and 1,151 injured in 1,150 road accidents nationwide, the road safety centre said.
The centre called a press conference on Monday at the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department to announce the figures derived from its monitoring of roads nationwide from December 29.
Deputy national police chief Pol General Surachate Hakparn told the press that on Sunday, the third day of the monitoring period, 424 accidents had occurred killing 51 people and injuring 416 others.
Surachate said speeding was the biggest cause of the accidents, accounting for 37.26%, followed by drunk driving (32.78%).
A total of 51,670 officials were deployed to man 1,780 checkpoints across the country on Sunday.
Kanchanaburi in the West of Thailand recorded 18 accidents, the highest in the country, on Sunday, Surachate said.
The accumulated death toll over Friday, Saturday and Sunday came in at 128 with 1,151 people injured from a total of 1,150 accidents.
The government has assigned the road safety centre to monitor the roads during the seven days when thousands travel out of the capital to their hometowns or to holiday destinations. The roads are usually heavily congested just before the New Year holidays and just after when people start returning.
This year the monitoring period runs from December 29 to January 4. Previously this period was called the “seven dangerous days” but now the authorities want it to be known as the “seven days for campaigning for safe driving”.
