Alcohol to blame for one-third of accidents
People crowd Hua Lamphong train station as they arrive back in Bangkok at the end of the New Year holiday.
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Drunk driving caused more than one-third of all road accidents on January 2, according to the Road Safety War Room.
January 2 was the sixth of the "Seven Most Dangerous Days". Speaking in his capacity as the war room's executive, Interior Ministry's permanent secretary Pongphayom Wasaputi yesterday said there were 509 road accidents on Tuesday, with 56 people killed and 576 others injured. Pongphayom blamed drunk driving for 40 per cent of these accidents. He said that speeding was responsible for 20 per cent of the accidents while motorists abruptly cutting in front of other vehicles accounted for 14 per cent. Of the accidents on Tuesday, 86 per cent involved motorcycles and most accidents took place on secondary roads that linked villages to other villages. Between December 28 and January 2, there were 4,078 road accidents. The death toll was 407 and the number of injured victims was at 4,546, which was higher than the similar period a year earlier. Pongphayom said Chai Nat, Narathiwat, Mae Hong Son, Yasothon, Lamphun, Samut Songkhram and Angthong were the only seven provinces free of any road deaths between last Thursday and Tuesday. There are 76 provinces across the coundtry. Pongphayom said 3,165 checkpoints had been concentrated on Bangkok-bound roads since Tuesday night as thousands of people travelled back to the capital to work. During the New Year holidays, hundreds of thousands of people travelled out of Bangkok for either leisure trips or visits to their hometown.
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