SAMUT PRAKAN: A 67-year-old cyclist was killed after a Fortuner sports utility vehicle crashed into his bike and seven power poles on Kanchanaphisek Road in Bang Sao Thong district yesterday morning.
The fatal crash occurred opposite the Chao Pak Tai association at around 7.30am, Thai media reported.
Bang Sao Thong police found the SUV with red plates on top of a roadside stall selling gardening materials. Seven power poles were damaged and a bicycle was lying on the ground nearby.
The victim, Wanchai Sodsareungkarn, 67, was found about 10 metres away, Thai media reported.
Relatives told police that the victim cycled this route every morning before returning to his house on Charan Sanitwong Road.
Police said a 25-year-old man, the driver of the Toyota Fortuner, and two friends sustained minor injuries in the crash. They were sent to a nearby hospital. The driver was later taken to Bang Sao Thong police station for urine testing and police interrogation.
In a separate incident, a pick-up truck crashed into a tree, killing the former deputy director of a subdistrict administrative organisation.
In the early hours of yesterday, Pol Capt Wiwatchai Rak-kaew, the deputy lead investigator of Nongsarai Police Station in Pak Chong District of Nakhon Ratchasima Province received information about a pickup truck crashing into a ditch on Mittraphap Road.
The man who died in the accident was Surasak Kaewtham, 37, a former deputy director of Chiengraknoi Subdustrict Administrative Organisation in Pathum Thani province. Four other passengers were found with varying degrees of injuries from the accident.
Pol Capt Wiwatchai ordered for the body to be autopsied for further investigation to determine how the incident occurred.
"We believe that that the man who was driving the vehicle had most likely dozed off at the wheel, as there appeared to be no sign of any attempts to brake where the vehicle had left the road," said Pol Capt Wiwatchai.
Thailand's road accident rate remains alarmingly high, and currently stands as the second-worst in the world, despite efforts to strictly enforce traffic laws.
The Transport Ministry has recently requested more time to decide whether or not to buy more speed cameras to help prosecute traffic law violators -- although a majority of these accidents are caused by motorbikes, not cars.
The World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion found that only 4% of people who violate traffic laws nationwide pay their fines and only 20% of violators are given tickets, which may encourage drivers to blatantly flout the laws.