Hazards that spell disaster

Bangkokpost: March 31, 2012 ...

We must hope that the dramatic spate of road accidents on the highways to the North and Northeast this week were not an indicator of what to expect in this year's fast approaching run-up to Songkran.

No one doubts that there will be fatalities and that most of them will involve motorcyclists and be fuelled by alcohol abuse. But our attitude to road safety must remain positive and reflect the fact that loss of life and mangling of bodies during national celebrations can be avoided if we do what we must. And that should begin with a huge investment in compulsory driver education that starts in school, combined with strict enforcement and upgrading of existing laws and the introduction of specialised new ones.

The senselessness of the most recent tragedies should alert those responsible for road safety during the festival that they need to put their safeguards in place without further delay. There is no point in waiting until the carnage begins in earnest and then just keeping score. The mid-week tragedies were highlighted by an 18-car pile-up in Saraburi in which three people died and 20 suffered injuries because a truck lost its trailer and by an overloaded pick-up carrying migrant workers from Myanmar which hurtled off the road into a canal at the sight of a police checkpoint, killing six migrant workers and the driver and injuring 12 other passengers, many seriously.

This underlines the need to slap sensible speed restrictions on pick-ups, which are not designed for speed, and stop them from being used as people carriers to ferry work crews around. Put 19 people in a pick-up, as happened in Ayutthaya on Wednesday, and you are almost guaranteed an accident. Tougher speed restrictions are also necessary for motorcycles to reduce the terrible death toll among young drivers along with trucks, inter-provincial buses, passenger vans and other vehicles, including cars. Speed limits need to be posted as well as enforced. There are just too many vehicles on the roads nowadays to allow drivers to race at crazy speeds, no matter how skilled they think they might be. This especially applies to tollways, where insanity often prevails. Basing commissions for bus and truck drivers on rapid journey times also courts disaster.

So why are our highways so dangerous? The hazards motorists face are similar all over the world: drink-driving, occasional bad weather such as rain, haze and constant heavy traffic. Aggravating these dangers are other factors such as contractors cutting costs on building what should be good and safe highways and letting unsafe vehicles take to poorly designed roads. There is a lack of regular maintenance of some of our existing road systems such as stop signs and safety markers with traffic lights often unsynchronised and mismanaged by traffic police. Add to this a dangerous mix of jaywalking pedestrians, reckless motorcycle, pick-up, car and truck drivers and lax enforcement of traffic laws with bribes occasionally taking the place of legitimate fines or arrests. But the key ingredient in this lethal cocktail is a lack of driver education leading to incompetence behind the wheel.

Insanity was once defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Isn't that what happens at Songkran and New Year? The same procedures are routinely put in place to deal with the same old problems and then we are shocked when we get the exact same result in the form of a huge death toll. It is time to adopt a 21st century approach and that is something we are quite capable of, but the driving force for change should come from the top.

http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/286793/hazards-that-spell-disaster