Crash Investigation and Reconstruction the New Experience in Developing Countries: Thailand Case Study

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

2005

Abstract

The socioeconomic development, level of motorization and alarming rate of road crashes have strong interrelationship in Thailand. The uprising trend of motorization level has a serious impact on road safety issue in Thailand among other ASEAN countries. Economic losses from the road traffic crashes also demonstrate quite a high figure in terms of GNP which is 3.4% annually. Death toll from road crashes indicates over 12,000 Thai people every year according to the statistics. It shows on an average that 2 Thai people become fatal in one hour and corresponding drain from Thai national economy amounts over 12 million Baht (about US $300,000) per hour. Statistical analysis also indicates that road traffic accidents in Thailand are considered as one of the major causes of premature death and disabilities among the working adults age group over the last two decades, which has brought road safety issue into the national attention. Although numbers of studies have been carried out to search for remedy measures, they are merely just accident analysis. Unfortunately, road crash investigation and reconstruction to carry out in-depth study in a systematic approach has yet to be conducted in practice in Thailand. Nevertheless, this is a common phenomenon that such in-depth study to identify the contributory factors in road crashes in any developing countries has not been conducted so far. This problem was addressed by conducting such in depth study in this study. Subsequently, this study also investigates the factors which contributed to the crashes. Specifically, it aims to describe how and why vehicular crashes occur in Thailand. It is believed that this study is the first of its kind to carry out such crash investigation and reconstruction in Thailand. Conventional hand calculations were carried out to describe the crash scenario. The findings of this study comprise of over speeding for heavy vehicles (i.e. trucks) as a case study resulting in slight injury. Application of Event Tree to focus on the events prior to crashes demonstrated complex human interaction with vehicle, and road and environment. Finally, the possible contributory factors of this crash were highlighted.

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Citation / Publisher Attribution

Proceedings of the Road Safety on Four Continents Conference, v. 13, 11 p.

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