Picture: Daily News
The disgraceful death toll on Thailand’s roads continues.
While politicians bang on about Covid their compatriots are lying dead in the road in their thousands.
The latest was a young man called Pornphairot on a motorcycle in Bang Poo, Samut Prakan.
An eighteen wheel truck did a turn into the industrial estate and that was the end of him.
Another “sop” ( the Thai word for corpse) that needed to be scraped off the road along with his Honda Wave.
The number of “sops” on the road – dead at the scene – is officially 12,209 this year up to 9th December when a fresh load of 47 were added.
Daily News gave the figures; they have a new graphic for their “safety campaign” – but it’s just more of “same old, same old” on the Thai roads.
Picture: Daily News
2019 saw 14,907 dead at the scene, 2020 14,825.
Up to this point last year it was 13,357.
That crumb of comfort has to be seen in the light of most of the country having been locked down for more of this year.
DPM Prawit admitted the real death toll was 20,000 plus a couple of years ago.
Him and the government don’t seem to have done much about the death of Thais and visitors to the country since – a million of his “phee nong” will die in the next few decades.
Accident experts put it at 25,000 annually – 80% of them on two wheels.
(Source: – Asean Now)