Fifty people were killed and 346 injured in road accidents across Thailand on Wednesday, bringing the total in the first six days of the so-called 10 dangerous days of the New Year holidays to 272.
The casualties were recorded in 339 road crashes on Jan 1, the Road Safety Directing Centre of the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation reported on Thursday.
Authorities this year extended the New Year road safety campaign to 10 days, from seven in previous years, as they sought to raise public awareness and promote more responsible driving. The campaign period runs from Dec 27 to Jan 5.
In the first six days, speeding has been the major cause of accidents, at 38.9% of the total, followed by drunk driving at 31.6% and poor visibility at 16.8%.
As in previous years, most of the vehicles involved in accidents were motorcycles, at 86.4%.
From Dec 27 to Jan 1, there were 1,739 road accidents that claimed 272 lives and injured 1,694 people nationwide.
Surat Thani province has recorded the highest number of accidents (63), injuries (73) and deaths (12) in that period. The latter included five people who perished when a tour bus went into a ditch in Chaiya district on Wednesday night.
A year ago, a total of 284 people were killed and 2,307 injured in 2,288 traffic accidents during the “seven dangerous days” of the New Year holiday.
Thai roads have long been ranked among the world’s most dangerous. According to the most recent data collected by the World Health Organization to 2021, Thailand ranked 16th out of 175 countries in road fatalities per 100,000 population, at 25.4. That same year, the WHO recorded 18,218 road traffic deaths in the country, an average of 50 per day.
