Death toll from Thailand's Songkran road accidents drops this year

BANGKOK, April 16 (TNA) - The Road Safety Directing Center, under the Thai Ministry of Interior, reports that from April 11-15, 2014, there were 2,481 road accidents, a 8.34 per cent year-on-year increase, but 248 people were killed during the period, a drop by 3.13 per cent year-on-year, while 2,643 people nationwide were injured, a 8.36 per cent year-on-year increase. According to the Road Safety Directing Center, no one was killed in road accidents during the period in eight Thai provinces, including Amnat Charoen, Chai Nat, Phetchaburi, Lop Buri, Ang Thong, Narathiwat, Phang-nga and Yala . The highest number of the injured was reported in the southern Nakhon Si Thammarat and the northern Chiang Mai Provinces, 101 each. Deputy Permanent Secretary for Interior M.L. Panadda Diskul told journalists on Wednesday that the death toll dropped from last year, but the number of road accidents and the injured rose, acknowledging that the most common causes of road accidents during the Songkran or the Traditional Thai New Year this year remained drunk driving and excess speed. The Road Safety Directing Center has, thus, ordered concerned officers to strictly operate checkpoints and to enforce traffic rules to minimize road accidents, as Songkran vacationers are returning to work. Meanwhile, Police Captain Chatree Rungdamrong, a highway police inspector in Ayutthaya, said that 120 highway police officers and volunteers have been mobilized to facilitate traffic flows on the Bang Pa-in Ring Road and at a bottleneck on Phahon Yothin Highway.(TNA)