Bang Sue district will be made a pilot "safe speed zone" in the capital where a speed limit of below 50kph will be enforced strictly, city officials say.
Enforcement will take place within two months, said Suthon Anakul, director of the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration's (BMA) Traffic and Transportation Department.
Mr Suthon said BMA officials will inspect the area to prepare for the plan. They will put up traffic warning posters about speed limits across the district and mark out traffic lines to match.
"We ask motorists who drive their vehicles into densely populated communities and pass temples and schools in the district to help reduce their speeds for the road safety of everybody," Mr Suthon said.
Mr Suthon yesterday announced the plan after representatives from the BMA and the Metropolitan Police Bureau's [MPB]'s Traffic Control Division agreed with the results of AIP Foundation's campaign called "Slow Down Save Lives" conducted between May 18 and July 18. The campaign found most respondents supported the setting up of pilot safe speed zones in the Bang Sue, Bang Pho, Sutthisan, Huai Khwang, Don Muang, Din Daeng, Ramkhamhaeng and Lat Phrao areas.
Country manager of AIP Foundation Thailand, Oratai Junsuwanarak, said many people agreed with the two-month campaign. The foundation's video clip featuring a traffic campaign against speeding has received more than one million views.
More than 500,000 people in Bangkok supported the campaign by posting the hashtag on social media, Ms Oratai said.
Apart from that, she said city folk agreed that driving faster than the legal maximum speed limits was problematic and dangerous for motorists in densely populated communities in Bangkok.
She also said she has found traffic police do not have enough equipment to catch speed violators. She wants the government to procure more for them.
Ms Oratai said the foundation particularly wanted the safe speed zones enforced in front of Yothinburana School and Mingkhwan Banna Market in Bang Sue district where the foundation and the ThaiRoads Foundation had carried out the anti-speeding campaign.
She said officers of the foundations had put up traffic posters asking motorists not to drive their vehicles faster than 50kph and marked out new traffic lines telling them they were entering a safe speed zone.
The campaign has received a positive response from people in the area.
"We found that speeding, especially on roads in front of schools and markets, poses a danger to people nearby,'' Ms Oratai said.
Pol Col Chaikrit Po-ah, a superintendent from the Traffic Control Division, said the MPB will speed up pushing for the speed control traffic regulation to be implemented in the Bang Sue area.
"If the pilot safe speed zone in Bang Sue is successful, we believe many more areas in Bangkok will set up such zones,'' said Pol Col Chaikrit.