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The so-called “Seven Dangerous Days of Songkran” are now over and the full accident report statistics have been released by the Road Safety Centre (see here). We can now compare accidents from this year to the past. As you can see from the chart below, the number of deaths caused by road accidents in Thailand during Songkran 2015 has increased by 13.04% and is the highest for four years. This might have something to do with the lack of road safety campaigns this year.

Songkran 2007: 361 deaths, 4,805 injuries and 4,274 accidents

Songkran 2008: 368 deaths, 4,801 injuries and 4,243 accidents

Songkran 2009: 373 deaths, 4,332 injuries and 3,977 accidents

Songkran 2010: 361 deaths, 3,802 injuries and 3,516 accidents

Songkran 2011: 271 deaths, 3,476 injuries and 3,215 accidents

Songkran 2012: 320 deaths, 3,320 injuries and 3,129 accidents

Songkran 2013: 321 deaths, 3,040 injuries and 2,828 accidents

Songkran 2014: 322 deaths, 3,225 injuries and 2,992 accidents

Songkran 2015: 364 deaths, 3,559 injuries and 3,373 accidents

It is a shame that road safety is only in the public mind for these seven days either side of the Songkran holiday. It would be nice if they regularly released statistics about road accidents in Thailand. More needs to be done to make road travel more safe, both for individual drivers and passengers of tour buses. I’ve mentioned before that a lot of these accidents are caused by inexperienced and unlicensed drivers out on the road. The practical exam for the driving test needs to be done on the road and not in the parking lot. The other problem is that many of the road rules are not enforced. They do have crackdowns every now and then, but these are mainly for the top brass to get their picture in the newspapers.

This year the Seven Dangerous Days ran from 9th-15th April 2015. The province that had the most accidents over these seven days was Phitsanulok. The province with the most deaths and injuries was Surin. The following is the breakdown of statistics for each day. The numbers in brackets are for the same period in 2014. Please note, these are not only “deaths” at the accident scene. For example, on Day 3 there were 61 deaths from road accidents, but one person died from injuries on the day before bringing the new total to 62 deaths.

Day 1: 25 deaths (41) and 348 injuries (402) in 324 reported accidents (379).

Day 2: 34 deaths (63) and 417 injuries (491) in 399 reported accidents (471).

Day 3: 62 deaths (59) and 516 injuries (747) in 492 reported accidents (689).

Day 4: 70 deaths (43) and 527 injuries (502) in 520 reported accidents (488).

Day 5: 60 deaths (44) and 724 injuries (501) in 671 reported accidents (454).

Day 6: 55 deaths (32) and 538 injuries (283) in 509 reported accidents (273).

Day 7: 58 deaths (44) and 489 injuries (299) in 458 reported accidents (238).

The following are the main causes of accidents for 9-15 April 2015:

Drunk driving: 39.31% (36.76%)

Speeding: 24.35% (24.47%)

Cut in: 16.17% (16.68%)

The following are the vehicles involved in accidents for 9-14 April 2015:

Motorcycles: 81.34% (79.14%)

Pick-up trucks: 9.48% (11.39%)

Cars: 4.26% (4.74%)

30.50% of accidents happened between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. followed by 22.69% between 12 p.m. and 4 p.m. The age group that was injured or killed the most were less than 20 years of age at 26.24%.