Road toll reduction 'too ambitious'

Road toll reduction 'too ambitious'

The Public Health Ministry has revised its target to reduce the death toll from road accidents after the original target proved too ambitious.

The new target is to cut the death toll by 7% a year, the ministry's permanent secretary Narong Sahametapat said.

Previously, the ministry set a target to reduce the death toll from road accidents by half in 10 years, from 2011 to 2020, under the "Decade of Safe Roads" campaign.

But in the first two years of the campaign the death toll failed to fall. The number of deaths caused by road accidents reached 14,033 in 2011 and 14,059 in 2012.

Economic losses from road accidents are thought to exceed 200 billion baht a year.

Next year, he said, the ministry will focus on improving database systems, in collaboration with the Royal Thai Police and private road safety management firms, to help it achieve the target.

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