The poll, which ran online from February 20 to March 6, 2015, asked readers to choose up to two answers from among six possible choices as follows (with results in brackets):
- Poor road maintenance and design: bad surface, U-turns, turn lanes, traffic lights (11pc)
- Reckless driving by large transport vehicles: lorries, tour buses and vans (37pc)
- Reckless driving by motorbikes and three-wheelers or saleng (22pc)
- Reckless driving by private cars: saloons, pick-ups, SUVs (14pc)
- Pedestrians, cyclists and other obstructions that shouldn’t be on the road (1pc)
- Phuket’s roads are as dangerous as anywhere (2pc)
Garnering thousands of validated responses, comments and shares on The Phuket News’ website and social media channels during the 2-week survey period, the poll proved to be our most active so far this year.
A majority of voters identified themselves as motorbike drivers (36pc) and car drivers (36pc), with another 23pc saying they switch between the two types of vehicles. Only 5pc of respondents said they walk or use public transport, while no respondents were drivers of large transport vehicles.
“The results are hardly surprising,” commented Steven Layne, Managing Editor of The Phuket News. “All around the world, larger vehicles make people more nervous on the roads, especially here in a country with the 2nd most road fatalities per capita in the world. Many of these deaths and injuries involve large vehicles.”
Irrespective of the type of vehicles, the perception of respondents were nearly unanimous (84pc) in that reckless driving is the main issue – not the state or design of the roads.
“This is the main issue we wanted to address in this survey, being as so much money is spent on building and maintaining roads, whereas driving and traffic tend to get neglected.”
In addition to the results, the poll also yielded some valid feedback points from respondents.
“Many readers commented that we should have included an ‘all of the above’ choice. The reason we didn’t, and limited the choices to only two, is we wanted respondents to really think hard about the options, to narrow it down to just the top two choices.
He continued, “The problem with many open-ended online polls, in which readers don’t have to think too much about their choice is you tend to get a lot of random, repeat and even uneducated votes that may skew the final result. We prefer to emphasise quality over quantity.”
Another valid point raised by respondents was that the “real” causes of the carnage is the lack of enforcement of traffic laws and especially the lack of proper road training.
The Phuket News agrees that the lack of policing and traffic training are indirect factors to road mayhem.
However, we also acknowledge the ineffectiveness of rule enforcement based on fear of legal
and financial repercussions. Etiquette, logic and reason are also needed.
Be sure to vote in our current poll here, and tell us what you think about double-pricing at National Parks, which closes on March 20.