A six vehicle pile-up that smashed up a Defence Ministry van and two tourist police cars has resulted in only a 1,000 baht fine for the driver of a ten wheel truck.
The driver – Manot Suaylam, 29 – said his truck carrying frozen chicken suffered brake failure before ploughing into vehicles waiting at some lights in Nakorn Pathom on March 20th.
The accident was high in the public eye because one of the ten people hopitalized was former national takraw player Seubsak Phanseub who is now a police lieutenant colonel attached to the Kanchanaburi force and is known affectionately as “Sergeant Joe”.
He suffered head injuries but they were not deemed as serious.
In fact the Nakorn Pathom police investigating said that none of the injuries sustained was serious and consequently the truck driver was only fined 1,000 baht.
The police said that compensation is also forthcoming from the person that caused the accident. This is likely coming from the company that owns the truck.
They also added that the case was not formally concluded.
Pictures at the time showed the Defence Ministry van high up wedged between the two tourist police vehicles that were believed to be part of a convoy.
Daily News are running a campaign to raise awareness about road safety issues and were clearly concerned about the apparent leniency shown in the case.
And we agree with them. The fine “system” here is simply unacceptable and it’s high time it was given a complete overhaul so that the fines actually mean something. In this particular case, it is obvious that speed had a lot to do with the accident by the position of the van. Hopefully, there is indeed more to come on this.
(Source:-Daily News)