News Forum - Thailand second most dangerous place in the world to drive

[Guest1]

Unlawfully overtaking other vehicles, not allowing vehicles on the main road to pass first, or not familiar with roads (1%). 

Oh, I thought that must be a lot more.  my bad.

How could someone be so far away from reality?

[cowslip]

20 hours ago, dmacarelli said:

It takes certain qualities to survive on the roads here

You need to be a competent driver with a self-awareness - citing personal anecdotes of other "driving" abuses is pointless. For a start 4-wheeled vehicles in Thailand are statistically LESS likely to incur death than in theUSA - so most observations about 4 wheeled vehicles being associated with the high death rate are simply wrong.

It's simply not a valid comment to say "what if they had" or "they could have caused" and accident - because the didn't did they?

[cowslip]

On 8/2/2022 at 1:14 PM, Chatogaster said:

A statement like that baffles me (or rather the audacity of someone thinking they might get away with it). It's factually correct but the chosen wording makes it sound like a useful revelation when it's neither (useful nor revealing) and hardly has any bearing on the topic. I'm (almost) equally baffled by the abundance of irrelevant statistics that were thrown into the article (not the statistics themselves but the reasoning behind including them).

The topic is "road safety", not "road accidents"; if 100% of all road accidents would cause no more than a scratch, road safety would be near 100%. If 100% of all road accidents would cause deaths, road safety would be near 0%.

Wen it comes to accidents involving serious injuries, accidents involving motorbikes stand head and shoulders above the rest, and that matters a whole lot more than "accidents in general".

"did not cause the most accidents" - they may not have "caused" them - they account for about 75% of fatalities. 

This is a reflection of such factors as around 6,650% more likely to die on the road than car users, half of all vehicles on Thai roads are 2-wheelers, the emergency services in Thailand are in the Stone Age.

[cowslip]

On 8/2/2022 at 10:46 AM, Ellenrocr said:

he driver is the cause of 95% of the accidents.

This is a common misinterpretation of causes of road incidents

HUMAN ERROR is a factor in around this number (93% on most papers)

human error my not even come from the driver and it is not about "blame" - it is to do with normal human behaviour within a driving environment. It is in essence a health and safety problem; the Thai authorities do nothing about this as they don't even recognise it.

 

Over 90% of crashes involve “human error” – this is not simply reckless driving or stupidity by  minority of drivers, it is common to all of us and inevitable. It’s usually very small occurrences that any driver can make. It’s inevitable human nature and can’t be stopped. The principal behind road safety science is to mitigate the results of this as near as possible to ZERO.

 

What is “human error”?

Human error is not “bad driving”, it is a normal occurrence. It has been shown that human error falls largely into one of three principle categories[1].

First is a perceptual error. Critical information that is below the threshold for seeing - the light was too dim, the driver was blinded by the glare, or the pedestrian's clothes had low contrast. In other cases, the driver made a perceptual misjudgement (a curve's radius or another car's speed or distance). Or in Thailand, just tinted windows!

Second and far more common cause is that the critical information was detectable but that the driver failed to attend/notice because his mental resources were focussed elsewhere. Often times, a driver will claim that s/he did not "see" a plainly visible pedestrian or car. This is entirely possible because much of our information processing occurs outside of awareness. - (Mack and Rock, 1998)

Third, the driver may correctly process the information but fail to choose the correct response ("I'm skidding, so I'll turn away from the skid") or make the correct decision yet fail to carry it out ("I meant to hit the brake, but I hit the gas"). 

Other parties involved in an incident may also cause or contribute to the crash. No one single person is EVER 100% to blame.

Thailand has had a lot of advice from road safety organisations both home and abroad, but somehow this advice does not get taken and is overruled by the archaic “we know best” prejudices of successive ill-informed governments who fail to understand the basic concept of “human error” as opposed to “blame”.

 

 

 

 

[cowslip]

On 8/2/2022 at 11:01 AM, DoUKnowWhoIAm said:

It all boils down to a lack of common sense.

there is no such thing - your sense, my sense and other drivers is not the same - you need to be aware of this before you can drive anywhere. Many countries spend a lot of time and money to protect drivers like that - it stops the idiots driving like idiots - all countries have the same proportion of "idiots".

[cowslip]

19 hours ago, joseph said:

"The truth is you are LESS likely to die in a 4-wheeled private vehicle in Thailand than the USA....."

That's only because the North Americans don't have access to amulets to protect themselves while driving like morons.

Really - you believe that? Most Thai people don't...I expect you have a St Christopher amulet in your car?

 

Edited August 3, 2022 by Khunwilko

[cowslip]

7 hours ago, Janneman said:

Only 3% of the accidents are caused by drunk drivers

Excuse me? - Where is that ? however you make an interesting assumption that they "caused" the accident. Regardless of "blame" the stats usually claim that alcohol was "involved" in an incident. the figures for almost every country in the world are between 15% and 33%.

 

Edited August 3, 2022 by Khunwilko

[DiJoDavO]

I'm one of the drivers in Thailand. If I'm in any dangerous situation it can either be one of these 3 things. 

Road closures without warning signs 

Huge holes in the road where you almost lose your wheels. 

People driving insane. I drive quite insane tbh, but there are guys from which even I get a heart attack behind the wheel. 

[Rookiescot]

19 minutes ago, Khunwilko said:

there is no such thing - your sense, my sense and other drivers is not the same - you need to be aware of this before you can drive anywhere. Many countries spend a lot of time and money to protect drivers like that - it stops the idiots driving like idiots - all countries have the same proportion of "idiots".

No. They dont. I can assure you if you drove like your average Thai in Scotland you would be dragged from the car and beaten.

[jobapps]

On 8/2/2022 at 5:00 PM, Slacker77 said:

Yea talking about the drivers education ,i remember once we were going from Bkk to Koh phangan with a minibus full packed 15 people and alot of cases and the heaven opened up and the raining came down like a flood and the driver sped up more and laughing  and i said to my friend we ain't driving on the road anymore now we are surfing on the road and it was very scary and after next restroom stop we took our bags and left the minibus,never again minibus i say .

We took a private car and he listened and drove carefully :)

yeah i get trains these days a lot safer and most of the time more comfortable

[TheDirtyDurian]

Driving in Thailand isn't that bad really. 

Driving in the Middle East is far worse. Riyadh or Cairo etc take things to a whole new level. 

I would say that in Thailand there is a high chance of having a minor accident, but in the Middle East it could be a major accident. Generally speaking the speeds people travel at in Thailand aren't that high which makes a difference. 

You don't see people people shifting at 200kph on the highway like you do in Saudi, and you don't see all the drifting etc, although that is a lot less in Saudi these days. 

[Marc26]

On 8/2/2022 at 3:00 AM, Slacker77 said:

Yea talking about the drivers education ,i remember once we were going from Bkk to Koh phangan with a minibus full packed 15 people and alot of cases and the heaven opened up and the raining came down like a flood and the driver sped up more and laughing  and i said to my friend we ain't driving on the road anymore now we are surfing on the road and it was very scary and after next restroom stop we took our bags and left the minibus,never again minibus i say .

We took a private car and he listened and drove carefully :)

I took a minivan once, supposed to be Ao Nang to Phuket

 

I got off the 1st rest area and asked around for a taxi, no way was I going back on that deathtrap and what seemed drugged out driver

And will never go one one again

[TheDirtyDurian]

 

don't get that on the sex highway to Pattaya...

 

 

[cowslip]

25 minutes ago, Rookiescot said:

No. They dont. I can assure you if you drove like your average Thai in Scotland you would be dragged from the car and beaten.

Sorry but I have driven extensively both in the UK (up to 90000 in year) and for 20 years in Thailand. You are confusing confirmation bias with Reality.

The problem is your term " like your average Thai in Scotland" - you are trying to say the Scotland is a norm - which it isn't. Driving and road safety are to do with the whole driving environment and you need to adapt to new environments - which as a competent driver you should be able to do. 

"Average Thai" is a subjective (and racist) generalisation. In reality Thai drivers have spent years honing their driving skills in Thailand and (apart from me) have driven much further than most foreigners and consequently are much more used to the condiotns in Thailand. How they would adapt to driving in Scotland is impossible to say as we don't know if they are any more adaptable than your self. They would probably find Scottish driving incomprehensible unless they were competent drivers - but to suggest as a race they couldn't adapt would be foolhardy.

[Marc26]

I just don't find driving in Thailand all that different than anywhere else...........

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

1 hour ago, Khunwilko said:

This is a common misinterpretation of causes of road incidents

You mentioned human error …. Though an accident is an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance; an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance was involved in a traffic accident.

is Human error Carelessness? Same with ignorance? Seams to be a lot of drivers in Thailand ignorant of the road rules and law of the road. 

[cowslip]

12 minutes ago, AdvocatusDiaboli said:

You mentioned human error …. Though an accident is an unforeseen and unplanned event or circumstance; an unfortunate event resulting especially from carelessness or ignorance was involved in a traffic accident.

is Human error Carelessness? Same with ignorance? Seams to be a lot of drivers in Thailand ignorant of the road rules and law of the road. 

No - see my explanation above - it is normal inevitable human behaviour. It is a constant and for road safety purposes has to be taken into account as it can't be eliminated..

the problems of road safety are addressed by the Safe System which has been adopted in one form or another by even country that has successfully reduced road deaths -

 

" a lot of drivers in Thailand ignorant of the road rules and law of the road. " - which "rules" are you referring to?

......it has nothing directly  to do with ignorance of drivers - which incidentally is not confined to Thai drivers who know a lot more about road rules than most foreigners in Thailand., who seem to drive according to the rules "at home'.

One doesn't focus on subjective terms like "bad driving" or "ignorance" but focusses on 5 main areas of road safety

 

1. Education 2. Enforcement 3. Engineering 4. Emergency 5. Evaluation.

these if addressed scientifically will result in a massive reduction in the death rate in any country where they are applied.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2022 by Khunwilko

[TheDirtyDurian]

15 minutes ago, Khunwilko said:

No - see my explanation above - it is normal inevitable human behaviour. It is a constant and for road safety purposes has to be taken into account as it can't be eliminated..

the problems of road safety are addressed by the Safe System which has been adopted in one form or another by even country that has successfully reduced road deaths -

" a lot of drivers in Thailand ignorant of the road rules and law of the road. " - which "rules" are you referring to?

......it has nothing directly  to do with ignorance of drivers - which incidentally is not confined to Thai drivers who know a lot more about road rules than most foreigners in Thailand., who seem to drive according to the rules "at home'.

One doesn't focus on subjective terms like "bad driving" or "ignorance" but focusses on 5 main areas of road safety

1. Education 2. Enforcement 3. Engineering 4. Emergency 5. Evaluation.

these if addressed scientifically will result in a massive reduction in the death rate in any country where they are applied.

No, you're wrong there ....

[AdvocatusDiaboli]

9 minutes ago, Khunwilko said:

One doesn't focus on subjective terms like "bad driving" or "ignorance" but focusses on 5 main areas of road safety

1. Education 2. Enforcement 3. Engineering 4. Emergency 5. Evaluation.

Without Enforcement, which I’m sure everyone on this forum that is in Thailand can verify is severely lacking here, bad driving and ignorance will forever continue. Does corruption affect how enforcement is carried out, maybe, maybe not, but I am sure that with more enforcement by well educated RTP the road toll here as well as accident numbers would decrease. 

[ChrisS]

"32,190 road accidents in 2020 and 2021"

I guess that is reported accidents and therefore only serious accidents (involving death or serious injury) Most accidents are not reported and police certainly are not interested unless there is a payout for them in it. I had a motorcycle driven by a drunk bar girl hit me when I was standing on the pavement in Chiang Mai next to a police man, I was not hurt but she came off the bike and cracked her head on the pavement, the police officer asked me if I wanted money off her and when I said no he left. I ended up giving the woman first aid for a badly cut head that was going to need stitches and a suspected fractured collar bone before getting her to hospital. Certainly no report done of the accident, the police officer could not get away from there fast enough.

[cowslip]

47 minutes ago, TheDirtyDurian said:

No, you're wrong there ....

cognitive dissonance?

[cowslip]

47 minutes ago, AdvocatusDiaboli said:

Without Enforcement, which I’m sure everyone on this forum that is in Thailand can verify is severely lacking here, bad driving and ignorance will forever continue. Does corruption affect how enforcement is carried out, maybe, maybe not, but I am sure that with more enforcement by well educated RTP the road toll here as well as accident numbers would decrease. 

Yes - this is only one part of one aspect

 

Regards enforcement - Thailand has the added problem of ingrained corruption, graft and bribery which impedes this, no matter how many laws are passed. The laws need to be reasonable applicable and equitably enforced too. The police and courts need to be trained to deal with it.

However, it also needs a legal system that can equitably deal with motoring offences - i.e. courts that can issue fines and penalties and a system for chasing up defaulters. They are talking about it right now, but I suspect that the system as it is can't cope.

To effectively catch offenders you need properly marked/delineated roads, independently calibrated equipment, a non-corrupt traffic police fully trained in road safety and RTI analysis,  as well as a legal system - some of this would require constitutional reforms. 

These factors are all interlinked; without  addressing all the other aspects

 

[cowslip]

47 minutes ago, ChrisS said:

"32,190 road accidents in 2020 and 2021"

I guess that is reported accidents and therefore only serious accidents (involving death or serious injury) Most accidents are not reported and police certainly are not interested unless there is a payout for them in it. I had a motorcycle driven by a drunk bar girl hit me when I was standing on the pavement in Chiang Mai next to a police man, I was not hurt but she came off the bike and cracked her head on the pavement, the police officer asked me if I wanted money off her and when I said no he left. I ended up giving the woman first aid for a badly cut head that was going to need stitches and a suspected fractured collar bone before getting her to hospital. Certainly no report done of the accident, the police officer could not get away from there fast enough.

All countries have a proportion of accidents that are not "reported". but when it comes to reporting, you need to consider who reports in such  way that stats are compiled. The [olice may be the first you think of but they are not the only ones and not necessarily the most important. Hositals and insurance companies are much more effective as a source for compiling statistics.

Sources for Thailand include 

1. Police Information System (POLIS) - Royal Thai Police
2. TRAMS - Ministry of Transport
3. E-Claim - Road Victim Protection Company
4. Injury Surveillance (IS) - Ministry of Public Health
5. Trauma Registry - Ministry of Public Health
6. 19 External Causes of Injury - Ministry of Public Health
7. Information Technology for Emergency Medical System (ITEMS) - Emergency Medical Institute of Thailand
8. Emergency Claim Online (EMCO) - National Health Security Office
9. OP/PP Individual Record - National Health Security Office
10. Death Certificates - Ministry of Interior.

furthermore organisations gathering stats have systems for dealing with countries like Thailand that have very poor statistic gathering which can make sense of incomplete information.

In a nutshell, a standardised database system on road accidents is needed that can be used across all agencies involved

 

[cowslip]

to understand road safety, you have to stop obsessing on subject issues like "how people drive" and concentrate on developing road systems that protect all road users.

[S2k]

According to Zutobi's own data, Thailand is #1 in traffic-related fatalities, per capita.

Also, I question how Zutobi arrives at the 'overall safety driving score'. For example, someone not wearing their seatbelt does not make it any more dangerous for other drivers.