Thailand's Horrifying New Year Road Toll 18% Worse Than Expected by Phairath Khampha 4 January 2002 New Year accidents in Thailand for 2002 were 18 per cent worse than expected. The holiday death toll reached 918, with 67,309 people being injured, the Public Health Ministry's Narenthorn Emergency Medical Service Centre said on January 2, 2002. On average four people died and 215 were injured in road accidents every hour during the holiday period, from December 27 to 4pm January 1, according to the ministry. It was said to be the worst New Year holiday carnage ever on Thailand's roads, despite a nationwide crackdown on drunk drivers. Most drivers in Thailand behave like little children, have no respect for the safety of others or the laws, and drive in an offensive, selfish manner. Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan said he figures peaked on the night of December 31, the culmination of the celebrations. There were a total of 6,657 injuries along with 107 deaths, compared to 5,095 injuries and 80 deaths on December 31 the previous year.  Road injuries totalled 34,095 with the remaining 33,214 injuries from holiday festivities. Road accidents also claimed 653 lives, and another 265 people died from other mishaps during the holiday. Nakhon Ratchasima had the highest number of casualties after Bangkok. The province reported 1,831 injuries and 43 deaths from road accidents alone. Bangkok reported the highest number of traffic deaths (104), followed by Nakhon Ratchasima (43), Khon Kaen (25), Nakhon Sawan (23) and Ubon Ratchathani (22). Nakhon Ratchasima ranked highest in terms of injuries from road accidents (1,831), followed by Chiang Mai (1,187), Surin (1,040), Buri Ram (997), and Chon Buri (986). Referring to the Epedemiology Division's analysis of the figures, Sudarat said the road accidents were largely linked to the high levels of alcohol consumption during the festival. She called on the authorities concerned - especially in the northern and the northeastern regions where New Year accident figures were very high - to be more vigilant about suppressing drink-driving, as well as enforcing other traffic regulations such as the wearing of crash helmets and fastening seat belts. The road-crash fatality rate over the holiday period was four per hour - in 2000 the rate was only three per hour. On New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, however, the death rate accelerated to 4.5 per hour. The deputy director of the Narenthorn Centre, Dr Phinai Kosphet, said the centre had gathered the information from 811 public hospitals nationwide and from a number of private hospitals. The figure did not yet cover casualties at other private hospitals. "The actual number who died of [road] accidents during the period probably is much, much more," said Phinai. The majority of the dead were motorcycle riders. Phichai said the major cause of road accidents during the New Year celebrations was drunk driving. "It has nothing to do with the length of the holidays, because the casualties have only been very high on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day itself," said Phichai. However, Phichai said this year's record number of casualties indicated that authorities should adjust their accident-prevention strategies. Additionally, the prevention campaign should focus more on motorcyclists. "This year about 80 per cent [of fatalities] were caused by motorcycle accidents," said Dr Somchai Kanchanasoot, director of the Narenthorn Centre. "The government's road-safety campaign targeting drunk drivers failed. The government targeted car drivers but didn't put enough emphasis on motorcycles." Public Health Minister Sudarat Keyuraphan said the high death toll among motorcyclists was due to the fact that most of the accident victims had not worn helmets. Most Thais refuse to wear helmets because they are concerned they might look foolish and most women worry about what it will do to their hairdos. Most Thais can afford to only own a motorcycle, if they can afford to own any vehicle. "More accidents are happening on small, rural roads, so next year the ministries will launch a campaign to cover rural areas," she said. Putting a monetary price on the carnage, the National Economic and Social Development Board said each accidental death costs the Thai economy 4.7 million baht (1 US Dollar = 44.2 Thai Baht). Meanwhile, motorists driving back into Bangkok from the Northeast through Nakhon Ratchasima's Pak Chong district on New Year's Day experienced bumper-to-bumper traffic on inter-province highways. The traffic-flow speed from 7pm on January 1 to 8pm the following day was about 10 kilometres per hour. At the Maw Chit Bus Terminal 2 in Bangkok, commuters said they had to spend an additional two or three hours on the bus when travelling back to Bangkok because of the heavy in-bound traffic. Any casual observer of the traffic situation in Thailand can tell that the underlying causes of traffic woes in general and road casualties in particular are a general lack of respect for traffic laws by motorists and pedestrians, and a serious lack of will to enforce laws on the part of the traffic police. For too long, traffic offences have been viewed by motorists and pedestrians as minor wrongdoings and treated as such by law enforcement officials. Even reckless motorists who cause death and grievous injuries to others have routinely been allowed to negotiate their way out of trouble (that is, paying bribes to the authorities) and avoid punishment, provided they can afford sizeable compensation to the victims' relatives and, most probably, big payoffs to law enforcement officials. That is why it is important for the Thai government and society as a whole to introduce a public education campaign aimed to change the deep-rooted attitude that does not respect human lives as much as it should. Thais typically have little respect for other human beings. A society that ascribes to itself Buddhist compassion toward humans and other living things must not continue to perpetuate the kind of attitude that holds that "life is cheap in this part of the world" and does nothing to deter preventable road mishaps. Law enforcement officials must start enforcing the existing laws that make punishment by imprisonment mandatory for reckless driving and drunk driving leading to the deaths and injuries of others. Members of the public, motorists as well as pedestrians, must also learn to strictly observe traffic laws not only to reduce road casualties and to avoid severe punishment, but also to start treating their fellow human beings with decency, which is extremely rare in Thai society. Flaunting of traffic laws and lax police enforcement are a lethal combination . . . The New Year 2002 holiday death toll in Thailand reached a ghastly high of hundreds. This was all the more tragic because it was so unnecessary. Global traffic death statistics tell the story: in Vietnam, on average 25 people die in traffic deaths each day (9,125 per year), in Thailand the number is about 2 per hour, on average 48 per day (17,520 annually). Recent statistics for China are unavailable, however the reported annual figure for 1993 was 63,000. The least lethal drivers in the world are in Finland, which has a national rate of 5.1 deaths per 10,000 drivers. Next up is Greece at 4.9 deaths per 10,000, then Hungary at 4.8 per 10,000. These figures suggest it is more dangerous to be in a vehicle than to be in combat in a big war. Many nations have reduced the carnage on their roads through a combination of approaches. Perhaps one of the more impressive campaigns was undertaken in South Korea. The November 9, 2001 issue of The Korea Herald reported that traffic deaths on South Korea’s roads had been reduced by 30 per cent compared to the same time a year earlier, from 8,654 to 6,653. “The drop in traffic fatalities,” an article stated, “is attributed to an increase in drivers buckling up, incentive rewards for citizens reporting traffic violations, and intense police crackdowns on traffic violations.” According to the Association for Safe International Road Travel, “annual deaths and seri¬ous injuries from road traffic accidents in develop¬ing countries are between 20 to 70 times as high as equivalent rates in developed countries.” The reasons are fairly basic. First, adequate rules of the road might not have been created, including even the physical support system of stop signs, traf¬fic lights and the like. Second, whether through ignorance or deliberate choice, motorists and motorcyclists often fail to obey existing rules of the road. Third, the police and courts need to enforce the rules or drivers will not take them seriously. In Thailand clearly it’s a combination of the second and third reasons. Traffic police are very corrupt and as long as he or she who infracts a traffic law can pay the cop then there is no way to prevent this level of carnage. The solution seems obvious. Thai television ads only encourage drivers to drink The high holiday death toll, despite a crackdown on drunk driving, should come as no surprise to any but the most naive. Thai people are under constant bombardment by advertisements suggesting that those who drink have more fun, are more suave and more attractive to the opposite sex. The more fun you want to have, the more you should drink. At the same time, a similar vice, smoking, is apparently so dangerous that images of cigarettes are digitally rubbed out from TV movies as if they were obscene objects. The message is clear: smoking is more dangerous than drinking, or surely the government would have already taken measures to curb the advertising of alcohol as well. The plain fact is that cigarettes kill mainly those who use them, and do so over the course of several years. Alcohol, meanwhile, kills not only the user but anyone else who happens to be around. It can cause massive property and even environmental damage, as the captain of the Exxon Valdez amply demonstrated. And alcohol can accomplish all this destruction not in a matter of years, but in hours. The Thai government is right to ban cigarette advertising. Now it must do the same for alcohol. If it allows such a deadly double standard to persist, it should prepare to see more horror on the highways come next holiday time. But the other plain fact is that the production and sales of alcoholic beverages vastly enriches Thailand's corrupt and greedy economic and political elite, including government officers and politicians. They would be unlikely to bite the hand that feeds them.