The Road Safety Administration Centre aims to reduce road accidents and casualties during the Songkran holiday by at least 5%.
Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda, chairman of the centre, said a recent meeting reviewed a draft road safety promotion plan for the annual holiday in which accidents, deaths and injuries would be reduced by at least 5% compared with the three-year average.
He said road safety interventions will be put in place to help cut road accidents and casualties.
Of these, one deals with plans to make roads safer for motorists while another calls for a quick emergency response to accidents.
"The other measures include promoting road safety awareness among motorists, streamlining officials' work and management and making sure that vehicles are roadworthy," he said.
According to Gen Anupong, the campaign to promote road safety for the Songkran holiday will start as early as March 15 and it will focus on road safety awareness. The campaign will intensify during April 10-16 when people hit the roads and will focus on tightening road safety measures including strict enforcement of traffic regulations.
Gen Anupong said the Road Safety Administration Centre has also reviewed a six-year road safety promotion plan for 2022-2027 to bring it in line with the road safety master plan which aims to cut deaths from road accidents to 12 people per 100,000 people by the year 2027.
Under the six-year plan, Thailand plans to reduce deaths from road accidents to 22.68 people per 100,000 population in 2022.
As of 2016, WHO's estimate of Thailand's fatality rate was 32.7 per 100,000 population.
During the 2020 New Year holiday, Thailand reported 3,421 road accidents with 373 deaths and 3,499 injuries.
Most victims were local people and most accidents involved motorcycles. The leading cause of accidents was disobeying the laws.