Police have claimed success in cracking down on teenage motorcycle racing after a drop in racing-related complaints of 60% compared with last year.
Surachet Hakpal, chief of the Patrol and Special Operation Division (PSOD), yesterday said the crackdown on juvenile motorcycle racing produced substantial results.
This month, the PSOD -- also known as the 191 police unit -- received only five complaints relating to motorcycle racing.
Pol Maj Gen Surachet was speaking yesterday during a seminar on measures to address motorcycle street racing and motorcycles on pavements at Centra by Centara Hotel, located at the Government Complex in Bangkok.
The suppression on motorcycle racing was conducted in response to the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) chief's order to tackle the problem of young motorcycle street racers.
Pol Maj Gen Surachet said police also closed down 21 Facebook pages operated by gang leaders of teen motorcycle racing networks while legal action was also taken against 279 suspects with 636 motorcycles seized.
Gang leaders arrange locations for illegal racing and provide information about police checkpoints for their networks.
Arrest warrants have been issued for 18 administrators of the Facebook pages. Each page with about 80,000-120,000 followers had about 200 young motorcycle racers in the gang.
More than 1,000 juvenile racers were sent to a rehabilitation programme by the Royal Thai Police. All of the total of 1,061 did not relapse into the same illegal behaviour as they were afraid their parents would face legal action, he said.
Pol Maj Gen Surachet said raids will be conducted every Friday and Saturday.
Police confiscated more than 10,000 motorcycle exhaust pipe tips from 36 shops selling motorcycle accessories, mostly located in Pathum Thani and Samut Sakhon.
Meanwhile, Huai Kwang police chief Kamphol Rattanaprateep said most gang leaders did not attend schools.
They established juvenile motorcycle racing gangs and set up Facebook pages as they wanted to be accepted by people in society, Pol Col Kamphol said. Young people viewed their behaviour as "cool actions" which are attractive to women.