While the virus pandemic has taken over the news and most countries are implementing drastic measures to stop and slow the spread of a virus lets not forget that Thai roads are still one of the most dangerous in the world surpassing African, South American, and Asian countries in death toll per capita.
Thailand has about 70 million people and from that, there have been 3,034 reported cases with 56 deaths related to the virus and Covid-19 illness. Today there are only 90 people in hospitals across the nation still infected with the virus.
Now compare that with 51 people dying yesterday in road accidents from which 47 were motorcyclists. There have been 264 deaths related to road accidents in the last 7 days and over 5800 so far in 2020.
Now perhaps all this effort used in containing the spread of the virus could be used to also save lives on the roads with better education since the tests and driving lessons to obtain a driving license seem trivial compared to my European experience in obtaining a driving license many years ago which can take most part of a year and is insanely expensive while in Thailand most don’t even take driving lessons or go to safety classes.
Yearly car inspections would help to get unsafe vehicles off the road and the ridiculously low fines for speeding and drunk driving are not helping. Seems the whole system needs an overhaul to maybe one day lower the record-setting death toll each year on Thai roads.
