Phuket Vice Governor Vikrom Jakthee announced the zero target yesterday (Dec 14) at a meeting held to coordinate all the government agencies in carrying out this year’s New Year campaign.
“During the new year holidays, many people like to travel to other provinces, bringing greater risk of road accidents than normal,” V/Gov Vikrom said.
“This meeting aims to make a clear understanding and to follow up the preparations from each relevant official, as we hope to reduce the number of accidents and have no deaths during the long holiday,” he added.
“This year we have the slogan ‘New Normal Life – Drive safe and no accidents’, as we have a goal to make all road users safe and happy during the holiday,” V/Gov Vikrom said.
The road-safety campaign for the new Year follows the usual four-stage outline:
- Dec 1 to 21 – Publicizing and promoting the campaign
- Dec 22 to 28 – Preparation (for officials)
- Dec 29 to Jan 4 – Intensive control and protection (marked by road checkpoints)
- Jan 5 to 11 – Performance analysis (reviewing the campaign’s effectiveness)
“We have already set out our orders for officers to follow to prevent road accidents and sent them to all district offices, municipalities and tambon administrative organisations [OrBorTor] so that all officers work in the same way,” V/Gov Vikrom said.
“Our orders follow central government policy and focus on reducing the factors that can cause accidents, especially speeding and drunk driving,” he noted.
“Officials must together target dangerous areas and times that they need to pay more attention to. There may be more checkpoints set up in each tambon. Rescue workers and officials must prepare equipment to be ready at all times,” V/Gov Vikrom said.
“From statistics of previous years, the main reason for accidents in Phuket has been drunk driving, followed by speeding. Most accidents have involved motorbikes,” he pointed out.
So far this year 68 people have died from road accidents in Phuket, the Thai Road Safety Committee (ThaiRSC) reports on its website.
A further 6,693 people suffered injuries requiring hospital treatment in the 5,761 road accidents in Phuket that have been officially recognised from Jan 1 to today (Dec 15), ThaiRSC also noted.
Nine of those injured this year were left permanently disabled, ThaiRSC reported.
During the meeting yesterday, officials stood and observed a minute’s silence for those who lost their lives on Phuket’s roads.
Kurt | 16 December 2020 - 10:27:35