12 killed, 15 hurt in Buri Ram road accident The Nation on Sunday January 1, 2012 1:00 am
A crowded Bangkok-Si Sa Ket tour bus collided with a pick-up truck in Buri Ram's Nang Rong district yesterday morning, killing 12 people and injuring 15. The Road Safety Centre, meanwhile, yesterday reported the casualty toll for the first two days of the seven-day New Year's holiday danger period at 94 deaths and 1,051 injuries in 955 accidents.Nang Rong police and rescue workers called to the Ban Sing Intersection on Nang Rong-Chamni Road discovered the bus and the wrecked, overturned pick-up truck in a roadside ditch. Inside the truck police found 12 dead bodies and one seriously injured person. A police investigation found that the truck was carrying relatives to assist a funeral in Buri Ram's Nong Hong district, and that the bus carried 50 passengers. Bus driver Somkiat Chutrakul, 34, and 13 bus passengers were injured. Police were investigating the cause of accident.
Land Transport Department chief Somchai Siriwattanachok told members of the media yesterday at the Road Safety Centre that four provinces - Kamphaeng Phet, Chaiyaphum, Trat and Nong Khai - had been free of road accidents as of yesterday.
On December 30, 58 people were killed (up by three from 2010) and 578 injured (down by 92) in 547 accidents (down by 72) nation-wide, he said.
Most accidents involved motorcycles (82.41 per cent). Among the main causes were drunk driving at 34.19 per cent and speeding (21.02 per cent). A total of 705,312 vehicles were stopped at 2,459 checkpoints and 89,715 motorists were found to have broken the traffic law, mostly by not wearing helmets and not carrying driver's licences. The 955 cumulative road accidents were fewer than the same period last year by 57 cases, the injuries down by 44 cases but deaths were up by 15 cases, he said.
Trang had the most cumulative accidents at 37, followed by Nakhon Sawan (36), while Nakhon Pathom and Ayutthaya shared the highest number of deaths at six cases each. Trang and Nakhon Sawan also had the highest cumulative number of injuries at 41 and 37 cases, respectively.
Holiday travellers yesterday continued to head to the provinces. The Northeast gateway province of Nakhon Ratchasima's Mitraparp Highway saw heavy congestion, with 20,000 policemen dispatched to man checkpoints. Bangkok's Mor Chit Bus Terminal was also crowded; Transport Co Ltd said up to 170,000 travellers passed through the terminal to take 7,317 bus trips.
