Today, the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation released the final death toll from road accidents over Songkran, or the Thai New Year’s holiday.
During the accident-heavy “seven dangerous days,” which this year were April 11-17, there were a total of 3,724 road accidents, in which 418 people died, and 3,897 were injured.
The number rose from last year’s Songkran, when 390 people died.
In the festival period, Thais commonly travel to their hometowns to spend time with their family, leading to more people on the roads, more partying, and, more accidents. The biggest causes of accidents were speeding and drunk driving, while motorcycles were involved in 82.4 percent of all road accidents.
The province that had the most accidents was Nakhon Sri Thammarat (15 accidents) while Suphanburi had the highest death toll (five people).
In 2015, the World Health Organization ranked Thai roads as the second deadliest in the world behind Libya. While the World Atlas, gave Thailand the title of “Country With The Highest Road Traffic Death Rate” in a report last year.
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