PHETCHABURI — A Thai driver and three Hong Kong tourists were killed and three others injured, including a child, when their van crashed on Cha-am-Pran Buri bypass in Cha-am district on Sunday evening.
The accident occurred at kilometre marker 3+100 in tambon Cha-am when a privately owned Bangkok-registered van carrying six Hong Kong tourists, one of them a four-year-old, was following a trailer truck.
Local media reports quoted witnesses as saying that the accident was likely caused by highway police who signalled the trailer truck to pull over within a short distance, forcing the driver to try to stop.
This caused the van driver to swerve from his lane to avoid a collision. His van skidded across the road and slammed into a tree in the centre-road storm drain.
The impact uprooted the tree. Two men and two women, including the driver, died at the scene. Rescue workers used cutting tools to retrieve their bodies from the wrecked van.
The three injured passengers were a 31-year-old mother and her four year old son and a man aged 31. Their condition is reported as critical. They were initially sent to Cha-am Hospital and later transferred to Phra Chom Klao Hospital.
Reports said a highway police officer tried to help rescue workers and villagers retrieve the dead and injured from the van, but villagers booed him. The officer argued he was driving by and pulled over when he saw the accident, and that he was not working in the area.
Pol Lt Sayoompu Sitthikul, an investigator at Cha-am police station, said inquiries into the accident were still ongoing and investigators could not confirm if any highway policeman had a role in the tragic accident.
He said the road was straight but there were small connecting streets used by villagers to get to their farms.
He initially assumed the van driver may have either taken evasive action or fell asleep behind the wheel.
Pol Lt Sayoompu said he would question the injured passengers when they had recovered.