Skip to main content

Thailand’s dangerous roads see heavy casualties

Thailand’s dangerous roads see heavy casualties every year.
By MJ Woof February 24, 2020 Read time: 1 min
Thailand’s dangerous road network - image © courtesy of Sarah Biswell

Dangerous roads pose a major hazard to live in Thailand. New statistics show that around 22,000 people/year die in road crashes on Thailand’s road network. This equates to an average of 65 deaths/day.

Drink driving is one of the primary causes of crashes in Thailand. Young people are at particularly high risk of being seriously injured or killed on Thailand’s roads, as are the powered two wheeler riders who make up much of the country’s road users.

Thailand’s road network stretches for some 500,000km in all, with around 400,000km being rural roads under local administration. It is this latter category that poses much of a problem, as boosting safety is the responsibility of local administrations that have few resources or expertise available to deliver the necessary improvements.

Related Content

  • Tackling India’s road safety will reduce crash rate
    February 19, 2013
    India’s road safety record is the world’s worst but there are plans to tackle the problems. Patrick Smith reports from New Delhi. A speeded up video of a short section of road in the Indian capital Delhi was followed by a question. “How many infringements did you count in that 25-second clip on a typical day in Delhi,” asked Dr Rohit Baluja, a question that brought understandable silence. It equated to hundreds of millions of infringements each year, said Dr Baluja, president, Institute of Road Traffic Educ
  • Europe’s roads are safer, but concerns continue
    July 16, 2019
    New data shows that Europe’s rural roads have seen a major improvement in safety levels. For the 2010 to 2017 period, road deaths on rural roads decreased more quickly than those for urban roads. Urban road safety is now becoming a key concern. Of particular concern for urban traffic is the high casualty rate amongst vulnerable road users (VRUs), which represent around 70% of those being killed. Pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists still face unacceptably high risks of being killed or seriously injured o
  • Road safety challenge for Europe
    December 3, 2012
    Europe’s road safety drive is highlighting key issues - Mike Woof reports In Europe there is a growing understanding that alcohol use amongst drivers still has to be tackled effectively. Accident data reveals that safety standards are improving across most European countries, with steady reductions in numbers of serious injuries and fatalities. But there remains a problem with alcohol use amongst many drivers and it is amongst this group that accident levels have not fallen. In Spain in particular, there ha
  • Kazakhstan’s high road risks claim lives
    February 1, 2018
    Kazakhstan has amongst the worst road safety of any country in the world. Around 3,000 people die in road crashes in the country every year, while a further 30,000 people are seriously injured. This worrying statistic reveals that Kazakhstan’s roads are so dangerous that around 24 people/1,000,000 of population are killed every year in road crashes. This figure shows that Kazakhstan’s roads are around 11 times more dangerous than those of Norway, one of the safest countries in the world for road travel.