In the early morning of December 5, 2023, a serious car accident occurred at the entrance to Wanakon National Marine Park in Prachuap Khiri Khan Province, central Thailand.
When a tourist bus was passing by the scene of the incident, the vehicle lost control, ran off the road, hit a tree on the roadside, and was instantly split in half.
Before the passengers could react, they were ejected from their seats at the rear of the car. The scene was comparable to a horror movie.
Car accidents like this happen one after another in Thailand.
The Songkran Festival that just passed was called the "7 Days of Death".
A total of 2,044 traffic accidents occurred in just seven days, resulting in 287 deaths and 2,060 injuries. On average, there are nearly 300 traffic accidents every day.
According to the latest survey by the World Health Organization (who), 17,000 people die in traffic accidents in Thailand every year, and 15,000 people are disabled due to car accidents. There are 32.7 people killed in traffic accidents per 100,000 people, ranking second in the world in traffic accident mortality.
This is why Thailand is known as one of the "most dangerous countries to travel to".
How dangerous are the main roads in Thailand?
Thailand is blocked and motorcycles are king
If you are a novice driver, please do not dream of driving in Thailand, otherwise you will experience a real version of road shock.
When you are driving on the roads in Thailand, you are very likely to encounter the following types of "ghosts":
Continuous lane changes without turning on the lights, only snake-shaped breakthroughs, unexpected collisions that catch you off guard; people who forcefully pass you by on extremely narrow roads Overtaking on the side will force you to experience speed and passion; there are also little experts who can find every opportunity to exploit it and force themselves to fight you.
In addition to these, you must be vigilant anytime and anywhere, because you don’t know when or from which corner a motorcycle will suddenly rush out and give you a big surprise.
● A Thai motorcycle that exploits every opportunity. Picture source: Yitu.com
Regarding the streets in Thailand, one sentence evaluation is:
The streets are jammed with dogs, and motorcycles are blowing up the streets.
Let’s talk about the congestion in Thailand first.
If you travel to Thailand, the tour guide will ask you what is the longest car in the world?
is not a train, not a high-speed rail, but a "traffic jam" in Bangkok.
● Traffic jam in Bangkok streets. Image source: Yitu.com
According to the survey results of tomtom, a GPS manufacturer, Bangkok, Thailand has been "the city with the most serious traffic jams in the world" for three consecutive years.
If traffic jams in general cities occur twice during the morning peak and evening peak, then the traffic jam in Thailand lasts from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
● Traffic jam clip from the movie "Lost in Thailand"
The main reason for traffic jams is that most urban roads in Thailand are "fishbone streets".
The so-called fishbone shape means that a main road has many branch alleys, and many of these alleys are one-way streets, resulting in many cars that can only go out but not enter, or can only enter but not exit.
Complex road conditions and long waiting times have made many Thais give up driving, which has given rise to a major means of transportation in Thailand - motorcycles.
How dominant is the transportation status of motorcycles in Thailand?
According to a survey, 87% of households in Thailand own at least one motorcycle, making it the country with the most motorcyclists in the world.
When waiting for a traffic light in Thailand, you will find that motorcycles squeeze the cars behind and line up majestically at the front.
● Motorcycles and cars waiting at traffic lights
With its small size, motorcycles can flexibly shuttle through traffic jams, greatly shortening commuting time. There are many gaps that cars can't get into, and motorcycles slide through them with a swish, and then drive away with a step that they don't recognize, leaving a row of black exhaust behind. It couldn't be more handsome.
But precisely because of its "flexible shuttle", the probability of motorcycle accidents is much higher than that of cars.
According to the bike republic website, Thailand is the country with the most motorcycle accidents in the world, with more than 74% of road accidents involving motorcycles.
There is actually a reason why there are so many car accidents in Thailand.
The prevalent wine culture
The number one culprit is wine.
The cause of the car accident we mentioned at the beginning was that the driver was drunk and unconscious while driving. There are a lot of such drivers in Thailand.
How much do Thai people love wine?
According to the "2021 World Beer Index" survey statistics, each Thai consumes an average of 142 bottles of beer per year, ranking first in Asia.
If calculated based on per capita drinking time, the time Thai people spend on "drinking activities" every year ranks first in Asia and third in the world.
Thai people drink during festivals, weddings and weddings, for entertainment, to ward off the cold or to escape the heat. Wine has become an indispensable drink in life.
In Thailand, you can buy alcohol within an average of 4 minutes' walk.
Overcrowded bars can be seen everywhere in the streets and alleys of Thailand. Due to the hot weather all year round, Thais generally regard bars at night as a good place to spend time. Three or five people got together, ordered a bottle of wine, and drank until midnight.
● Doesn’t the Bangkok bar
sound very pleasant?
But beneath the surface happiness, the Thai people are actually suffering.
In 1997, when the "smiling" Thailand was still immersed in the glory of the "Four Asian Tigers (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines)", the financial giant was shorted against the Thai baht before it had time to react.
Thailand's economy has been in the doldrums ever since.
Low income and high unemployment rate put Thai people under great pressure in life. Paradoxically, Thailand is also a country of smiles, and this is inseparable from their developed tourism industry.
When you travel, you will always see Thai people putting their hands together, smiling brightly, and saying "Sawadika" to you.
● Thai woman. Image source: Yitu.com
But what you don’t know is that most of them are “disguises” of Thai people.
A foreign scholar once lived in Thailand for more than ten years and found that among the more than 100 kinds of smiles of Thai people, more than 90 kinds express rejection or negation.
"Face Project" has been deeply ingrained into the character of Thai people. Even if there are ten thousand reluctances in their hearts, they will only be expressed with a smile in the end. This long-term depression is constantly destroying their spirits, and they need an outlet.
And the thing that can release them is wine.
Therefore, at night, they choose to numb themselves with alcohol and enjoy a moment of happiness, which can be said to have carried out the "drunk today" to the extreme.
Accidents are most likely to occur when people are drunk.
At around 2:30 in the morning on January 14 this year, a Thai woman drove drunk in Pattaya, Chonburi Province, Thailand, causing a series of collisions with as many as seven cars near Jomtien Beach.
When the woman took an alcohol breath test, her blood alcohol content reached an astonishing 189 mg/100 ml, far exceeding the standard of 50 mg/100 ml and reaching the level of drunk driving.
At 1 a.m. on June 7, 2019, in Chachoengsao County, Thailand, a family of three was hit by a drunken driver's pickup truck while crossing the road. Two of them died on the spot and the other was seriously injured.
Even the local police cannot escape the temptation of alcohol.
In July 2023, a drunk policeman in Thailand lost control of his car and crashed into four motorcycles, killing two and seriously injuring two others.
During holidays, more people drink and drive, and car accidents occur more frequently. This is why the Songkran Festival in Thailand is called the "7 Days of Death."
Loose system
Let’s talk about Thailand’s transportation system. The word “loose” is the best way to describe it.
Let’s talk about the driver’s license test first. In Thailand, it doesn’t take a month or half a month to get a driver’s license, it only takes 3 days.
Thailand’s driving license test does not require you to go through a driving school to learn to drive. As long as you think you can do it, you can take the test directly.
The test process is also extremely simple: watch 5 hours of traffic safety videos, answer theoretical questions on a computer-based test, and take three road tests: forward and backward on a narrow road, parking at a fixed point on the roadside, and reversing into a garage.
● Thailand Driving License Test
As long as you pass these, you can get your driving license on the same day.
In other words, most of the drivers on the roads in Thailand are from "wild roads" where they learned from their family and friends, and the relatives and friends who teach them are also brought out by wild teachers.
There are many drivers who don’t even want to spend three days and just drive without a license.
Because there is no professional "guidance" from a driving school, Thai drivers have no idea about basic road driving rules such as "yield the speed but not give way", "turn on the light before merging" and "overtaking on the right".
Since it is so easy to get a driver's license, then the punishment system can be stricter, right? In recent years, Thailand has indeed made improvements in the penalty system for traffic violations.
In 2022, Thailand will follow China's traffic system and implement a point deduction system for motor vehicle violations of traffic regulations.
Each driver has a basic 12 points. If he violates traffic rules, he will be deducted points. The demerit points range from 1 to 4 points. Although
looks similar to China's penalty system, the penalties for some violations are still much lighter than those in China.
For example, in China, major violations such as drunk driving will be punished with a deduction of 12 points. In serious cases, a life-long driving ban or prison sentence will be imposed. In Thailand, the maximum deduction point is only 4 points. If you feel that your points are low, you can apply to the Land Transport Department for driving and traffic law training to regain your points.
Thailand will also grant one-time tolerance for drunk driving and only deduct points. Those who drink and drive again within 2 years will be detained or fined heavily.
In terms of overall fines, although Thailand has increased the upper limit of fines from 1,000 baht (approximately 200 yuan) to 4,000 baht (approximately 800 yuan), the overall fine amount in Thailand is still lower than that in China A level.
However, this adjustment is already a big improvement for Thailand.
After all, before the introduction of this regulation, Thailand only imposed fines for any violations. Moreover, actual implementation depends on the mood of the traffic police.
A few years ago, there was a piece of news about the Thai traffic police that made netizens dumbfounded.
Two young men were caught by the police in Thailand for riding a motorcycle without wearing helmets. They should have been fined 500 baht (about 100 yuan), but they claimed they had no money in their pockets.
So, the two policemen "changed their thinking" and changed the traffic law. After letting the two young men do 10 push-ups on the spot, they were allowed to get on the road.
I am afraid that only the Thai police can come up with such a painless measure.
Not all Thai police can be as simple as doing push-ups out of kindness.
Most of the time, if you want the Thai police to let you go, you need money to solve it.
Due to the serious corruption in Thailand, some rich and powerful people firmly believe that money can solve all problems.
Under such a trend, Thai society is shrouded in bribery from top to bottom. Even the police who represent justice will force themselves onto the pirate ship because of greed.
According to the New York Times, there are only 3,000 traffic policemen in Bangkok, a city with a population of tens of millions. They work in the sweltering heat, monsoon rains and suffocating car exhaust, but their average monthly salary is only US$600.
And the small money that the rich use for "convenience" is very tempting to them.
This is why the odds of dying in traffic accidents are very different between the rich and the poor in Thailand, because for the rich, powerful or "someone" group, there are no rules on the road.
They know that no matter what rules they break, there will be no problem. A few dollars are enough to solve everything.
For example, in 2012, a young man in Thailand knocked down a pedestrian while driving a Ferrari and dragged him nearly 100 meters until he died.
Breathalyzer tests showed that the Ferrari driver was intoxicated at the time, but now more than a decade later, the driver has never been charged.
As the saying goes, a good system turns villains into gentlemen, and a bad system turns gentlemen into villains.
The quality of the system is the fundamental factor in whether a society is stable.
It is not surprising that accidents occur frequently in Thailand, which is governed by a system full of loopholes.
National server status
When it comes to vehicle driving and traffic management, it should be said that our country is much stricter than Thailand.
Take the driver's license test as an example. Everyone knows that you have to pass multiple tests from subject one to subject four before you can get your driver's license.
Speaking of which, it really brings tears to my eyes.
The "Subject Three" that has become popular all over the world this year also originated from an unexpected "one-minute" driving test video.
The scene of being scolded by the driving school instructor and the repeated "unqualified" speeches have become painful memories for many friends.
Getting a driver's license is just the beginning.
As a Chinese car owner, you must always be careful of ubiquitous cameras, traffic police posting tickets, and a series of prohibited signs. Otherwise, if you are not careful, you will be deducted points and fines, or even have your driver's license revoked.
Driving in China is really not easy.
But these processes and systems are essentially for the protection of citizens.
But even under such strict management, China's traffic accident mortality rate is still among the highest in the world.
According to the latest data, a total of 1.75 million road traffic accidents occurred across the country in 2023, of which 500,000 were killed.
Therefore, no matter how many years you have been driving, there will be safety risks as long as you are on the road.
Especially during holidays, the number of vehicles on the road will increase dramatically, and safe driving is the top priority.
During the May Day holiday, all friends who are going to travel are reminded:
Traffic needs to be cautious and do not drive wildly on the road.
There are tens of millions of roads, safety is the first priority, driving is not standardized, and relatives shed tears. Text/latte
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