UK and Thailand Road Safety weaving all over the road?

Khun Anchalee Kongrut swerves around none of the concerns of drink-driving and road safety in Thailand in her article:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1281271/more-jail-time-wont-prevent-drink-driving

Certainly 40 road deaths per day and 25% of those due to drink-driving is sadly Thailand living down to its reputation as one of the world’s worst nations for road safety.

And if the Buddhist Lent ban on drinking may reduce deaths over the long holiday weekend, then is the reality 6 months on from the 7 Dangerous Days of Xmas and Thai New Year that the death toll will simply remain as high as ever by next Xmas?

The reforms on passenger bans in the back of trucks and on minivans and seatbelt wearing will be fruitless unless drink-driving is tackled hard.

Britain can take great pride in its road safety work over the decades – and there is no quick fix it does take decades of consistent and rigorous effort - and is now rivalled only by Sweden as the safest roads in the world.

##UK Road Safety##

Chief Inspector Phil Vickers the road safety expert at Lincolnshire Police – one of the 43 UK police forces – has done much to promote the #Fatal4 next wave of road safety measures of which drink driving is a persistent problem.

While both Lincolnshire Police and Chief Constable Simon Byrne of Cheshire Police have been active in highlighting road safety work, especially speeding and drink driving with the Police Interceptors TV show.

If Red Bull has given wings to its heir now on the run – the Lord Lucan of fizzy drinks- it would be unthinkable for any cop-killer on UK roads to escape justice for so long. And Yoovidhaya having fled London before being collared managing to flee in a private jet to Singapore, raises concerns over Interpol’s activity so far.

As an aside, it raises questions over what the lawyers were saying to the courts until now in the Red Bull case. And certainly UK can take no pride in a wave of corrupt lawyers and courts – not just the South Thanet election fraud nor Russian libel tourism nor even Lord Grabiner and his cabal of crooked barristers in One Essex Court but also blatant HMRC fraud by Lawrence Stephens lawyers:

https://www.lawrencestephens.com/people/andrew-conway/

But with road safety, Chief Constable Pughsley of Kent Police can cite great improvements in frontline Kent with the police HGV to spot long distance lorry drivers drinking or using the mobile phone. Even watching television – presumably not Police Interceptors – while at the wheel.

Using a mobile phone while driving has been vigorously clamped down on as one of the #Fatal4 in the last year with a $300 fine and 6 points (out of 12 before a ban) on a licence.

While the Road Safety Experience by Kent Fire and Rescue (called out to rescue drivers from the mangled wreckage of car crashes as well as from burning buildings) is an unusual tourist attraction with not just the proverbial beer goggles on how drinking affects driving but road simulators etc.

While forensics are vital in road safety for crash analysis and the plethora of other techniques such as Cold Case review, crash analytics eg injuries caused by car keys requiring vehicle redesign or autoparts review such as brakes and larger scale reporting and recalls such as the Vauxhall Zafira fires are part of the police road safety armoury.

##UK and Thailand Road Safety##

And Bobby Bear merchandising surely a missed opportunity so far at King Power or the Siamese Foxes of Leicester City and the neat flourishes of a police tyre gauge thingummy to check tyre tread for road safety, laminated checklists, and windscreen ice scrapers. The latter admittedly not much use in Thailand.

Surely UK and Thailand working together should enable the boys in brown to get together with the boys in blue at the Road Safety Experience as well as Hendon and share knowledge and tips? To put it bluntly, Thailand would be pushing against an open door to easily access decades of road safety work that works.

And Kent Police are going into overdrive for the Summer road safety campaign – deaths on UK roads counter-intuitively more in Summer than the Xmas festive season due to longer evenings and pub drinking. Bizarrely KCC council are running separate rather clunky campaigns on mobile phones and even worse passengers and speed which is both mixed messages and campaign dilution at its worst.

In my politics work Garbutt for Ramsgate Mayor and MP I’ve urged Frontline Kent as a hothouse of innovation with 20mph zones (down from the usual 30mph) for 10 miles radius around town centres:

http://lovekentloveramsgate.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/kent-chief-constable-letter-and.html

In my Sincerity advertising role, one of the most effective UK road safety campaigns was the Kill Your Speed not a Child ads as research showed adhering to the 30mph limit would reduce child deaths.

Plus I’ve urged zero drink-driving (currently about one pint of beer is allowed) and even the USA system of no booze in cars at all, except locked in the boot, and certainly no open cans or bottles.

And if Khun Anchalee expresses concern over jail sentences for drink driving that would be one tool in the armoury to make a huge dent in drink-driving initially. While the Don’t Drive Drunk Foundation along with GRSP Global Road Safety Partnership must surely have a more active role to play with government to prevent half measures on drink driving?

Khun Anchalee’s potential dashboard cam for her car raises questions over the efficacy of Thailand’s CCTV and road camera systems first raised with the central BKK wat bomb - and the age-old problem of the public sector in the public paying twice, once for the system and then once again to do it themselves properly.

Shouldn’t UK and Thailand take turns at the wheel in sharing road safety experience before the 7 Dangerous Days come hurtling around the corner again?

@timg33