Early in the morning on July 23, 2013, a double-decker passenger bus collided with a delivery truck and then caught fire on one of Thailand’s busiest and deadliest highways. The accident killed nineteen of the passengers and injured twenty-three others.
Most of the passengers and the driver of the bus were still trapped inside when it suddenly burst into flames. Rescue workers had to work quickly to extinguish the flames and get the remaining passengers off of the bus.
The bus was headed to Bangkok traveling on Mitraphab highway, which is located in the Kaeng Khoi district of the province of Saraburi.
Saraburi is sixty miles north of the city of Bangkok.
According to news reports, the driver of the truck involved in the crash suffered injuries to his head and legs. The truck driver was on his way with a load to a local factory. The truck driver has not yet been identified. Officials believe that he may have dozed off, and that is what caused the collision.
After the crash between the bus and the truck, another accident occurred during the traffic pile up that injured a woman who was a passenger in a car.
The crash has raised major concerns about the safety of roads in the region. The section of road where the accident happened is beautiful, bordered by beaches, but has an extremely high volume of accident-related deaths.
This crash happened a day after a tour bus making its way to Bangkok from Phang-nga province crashed. Twenty-two people were injured in the collision.
In Thailand these types of deadly crashes have become weekly occurrences. Thailand has one of the worst road safety records in the world.
Thailand sees over twenty-two million visitors a year. Because of the large amount of tourists on the roads, road safety is a major concern.
Countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom and United States, have actually issued warnings to tourists about the bad road conditions in their countries . The newly released British Foreign & Commonwealth Office annual “British Behavior Abroad” report states, “Thailand has seen a significant increase in hospitalizations and deaths, despite fewer cases worldwide. While acknowledging that an aging population attributed to the increase, road traffic accidents, many involving young people on mopeds.” The report also cites, “serious accidents involving other vehicles including cars, coaches and mini-buses” as being a risk to its citizens. “Many accidents are due to poor vehicle and driver safety standards,” reads the advice.
“In Thailand, a country with 50,000 British residents and over 870,000 British visitors per year, there were 68,582 road traffic incidents resulting in 9,205 deaths involving both Thai residents and tourists in 2011,” says the U.K. government post announcing the new campaign. “In contrast 1,901 people were killed in road accidents in the UK in 2011.”
More than 9,700 people were killed in road accidents in Thailand last year alone.