Road Accidents, the “Silent Threat” That is Challenging to Deal with

Abstract

The coronavirus 2019 crisis has created a lot of awareness of people’s self-protection, despite the “silent threat” caused by road accidents that people still do not pay as much attention as they should. Although the number of road accident deaths in the past 10 years in Thailand from 2011 to 2020 has reached an average of 20,000 per year; and high mortality has been observed among young people aged 15-19 years old with the cause of death mainly from motorcycle use. The government has set a challenging target of mortality reduction from the current 27.2 per 100,000 population down to less than 12 per 100,000 population by the year 2027. To achieve this goal, it is necessary to have both urgent measures in the short-term to reduce significant risks among motorcyclist which is the main risk group at the accident and death, especially the need to achieve universal helmet use (100% coverage). In addition, there is a need to have medium- and long-term measures for addressing various structural causes including the development of safe transportation structures, physical infrastructure, urban planning, and strengthening the locality in managing problems in the area. The key lessons from successful countries are to focus on systematic and structural management in addition to the measures targeting the main risk groups.