Tourist vans in Thailand – Four Mexican tourists die in minivan crash in Phichit and 6 injured. Why does this recent news headline surprise me in the least?
Doing a simple Google search for “tourist minivan crash Thailand” and you will see scores of images showing crashed minivan’s, some with fatalities, all with injuries.
Now I have caught a couple of these vans, and have now made a decision to never set foot in one again while in Thailand. Aside from the above graphic images, what would make me feel that unsafe being a passenger in a minivan in Thailand?
My most recent experience with minivan travel was on a trip from Bangkok to Savannakhet in Laos. The minivan trip itself was approximately 9 hours on the road.
Due to an arsehole passenger I was stuck beside, I spend most of the trip there and back awake so I was privy to the many close calls, excessive speed and lack of safe judgement that was displayed by these Thai national’s behind the wheel.
Add to all of this lack of seat belts it makes this choice of travel one of the worst choices for safety in Thailand.
I am by no means exaggerating how scary being in one of these vans can potentially be.
Speeding along a two lane road at night, with limited vision with speeds in excess of 130kmh, overtaking slower vehicles on blind corners and swerving to miss on coming traffic are only a small taste of the dangers that you can expect to experience.
Taken from Thailand News sources in PHUKET: Four Phuket tourists have have been killed in a Saturday evening collision on the main road north of Phuket – a pileup that brought the total toll in that area to 14 dead in three horror smashes in just over a month.
Authorities in Thailand admit there are no controls governing taxis and minibuses. No formal registration and no training conditions are imposed which make you seriously question the ability of the drivers that could be behind the wheel in your minibus.
Some of these crashes result from “tail gating” also. Tail gating is something that REALLY gets up my nose. It seems to happen no matter which lane you choose to drive in, but some of it is caused by those that travel slowly in the “fast” lane.
I personally feel these vans need to have speed limiters fitted and GPS tracking to be allowed to be in business.
This would see speeding accidents halved, with GPS tracking being able to show accurate times taken between two points.
UPDATE: As we move into the new year and a new 2017, the statistics have not changed at all. As I type this, it’s 3 days before Xmas 2-16, and a news report in from Phuket indicated at least two foreigners were killed this morning in Phang Nga province while on a Visarun mine bus. Scores more injured in yet another waste of life, families will be grieving this xmas unnecessarily.
The minivan, operated by KBV Visa Run, was bound for the Malaysian border. The 33-year-old driver told police he lost control on a bend due to the rain. The experience here is that the driver will blame the road for being wet, they will never slow down and drive to the conditions, dispite having up to 12 lives in their hands.
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[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-oNElDPa3M[/embedyt]
doing 100 in 50 zones is rather scary… and some of the overtaking manoeuvres had me gripping the seat and closing my eyes… and that was just from Patong to Ao Por
We transferred from Ao Nang to Phuket airport in a minivan 2 days ago. I have never been so scared in my entire life. The minivan’s constant speed was 140km/hr, slowing down to 100km/hr for the corners (which were driven like we were in a race car, taking it wide and then crossing lanes part way through). And the tailgating was continuous – less than a metre from the back of the front car (often a truck or bus) at 100+km/hr. I deliberated the whole way whether or not to tell the driver to slow down – fortunately we made it there okay – but after seeing this website http://driving-in-thailand.com/accidents-involving-minivans/ I hope something is done.
Thanks for sharing. It is insanity. There was another crash 4 days ago, involving 2 dead and 10 injured on wet roads, where the van slide off road and hit 2 trees. The driver said he was only driving at 90khm, but on a wet road. It wad of course the “wet roads” fault not the driver.