500 Thai road casualties in one day

In the busy traffic on the first day of the Thai New Year's festival, Songkran, five hundred traffic casualties have fallen on Wednesday.

This is only the beginning of what is called 'the seven deadly days. 'The traditional festival Songkran lasts a week and leads to numerous traffic accidents. The Minister of Tourism and Sport, Weerasak Kowsuwat, said Thursday that the cause of 40 percent of the accidents was in excessive alcohol consumption and in more than a quarter of the cases was too fast. Most accidents were with motorcycles.

The Thai authorities are trying to limit the accidents in the seven deadly days by tightening control. More than 3300 people were arrested on Wednesday at special traffic controls because they were drunk behind the wheel. The controls are still little successful, because on the first day of the Thai festival there were almost 10 percent more accidents than last year.

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