CityNews Article Archive:
Songkran: The Casualties of War

CityNews – The Chiang Mai centre for preventing and reducing traffic accidents during the Songkran festival (11^th – 17^th of April) has now closed, and the road incident figures over the festival period from the centre have been released:

There were a total of 87 road accidents with 95 people injured and a total of 9 deaths. Chiang Mai ranks seventh in the list of provinces with the most deaths during Songkran, 2012.

At 10 a.m. on the 18^th April  M.L. Panadda Diskul, the Chiang Mai governor, attended a conference where the Songkran accidents were discussed and summarized. The outcome of the conference concluded the news wasn’t great, but it was better being that there were five less  road accidents and 2 less deaths. The most dangerous day was 13^th April, 2012, with 19 accidents occurring. The area with the highest rate of accidents was Fang district where there were 10 accidents.  In Chiang Mai Muang district, there was also a high rate of road accidents, in total 9 accidents.

Of the 9 people that died in Chiang Mai, 7 of them were male and 2 were female. There were less deaths this year compared to 2011, in which 11 people died. Overall during Songkran this year there was a total of 320 deaths in Thailand. Surat Thani province ,which had 13 road accident deaths, was ranked first for road fatalities.

The conference also reveled that the main causes of accidents were drink driving (51.78 %) and dangerous driving (27.59%). Other reason for people bring hurt in accidents included; not wearing a motorcycle helmet; not being able to drive; and not wearing a seat belt. The majority of accidents in Chiang Mai involved cars (75 accidents), there were 8 pickup truck accidents.  

Panadda insisted that road safety is of high priority to local authorities and must be improved upon each year. At the conference it was announced that whilst the government tries its utmost to improve the safety of Chiang Mai’s roads, people must take responsibility for their own actions, and should have an attitude towards drinking driving as being socially unacceptable, which at present it is not. 

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                ? ? 2555 “? ?” ? 11-17 ? 2555 ? 87 ? ? 95 ?  ? 9 ? ? 7 ?

                ? 10.00 ?. ? 18 ? 55 ?.?.? ? ? ? ? ? 2555 ? ? ? ? ? ? 87 ? ? 54 ? 5 ? ? ? ? 13 ? (19?) ? 14 ? (15?) ? 12 ? 14 ? (12?) ? ? ? 10? ? ? 9 ? ? 8 ? ? ?  7 ? ? 95 ?  ? ? ? (11 ?) ? ? (10 ?) ? (9 ?)

?.? ? ? 9 ? ? 7 ? ? 2 ? ? 2554 ? 11 ? ? 2 ? ? 7 ? ? 320 ? ? ? ? 13 ? ? 2 ? ? ? 11 ? ? 3 ? ? 11 ? ? 4 ? ? 10 ? ? 5 ? ? 10 ? ? 6 ? ? 9 ?

? ? ? 45 ? (51.78%) ? 25 ? (27.59%) ? ? 21 ? (24.14%) ? 13 ? (14.94%) ? 10 ? (11.49%)  ? 45 ? (43.69%) ? ? 25 ? (24.27%) ? ? ? 25 ? (24.27%) ? ? ? ? 75 ? (83.33%) ? ? 8 ? (8.89%) ? 5 ? (5.56%)

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