A week after a big motorcycle killed a pedestrian in Bangkok, sparking calls for stricter vehicle safety, a foreign man was severely injured when struck in Pattaya.
The unidentified man suffered a broken ankle and head injury in the Jan. 29 accident at a crosswalk on Soi Chalermprakiat 23.
Somchai Ahayi, the 29-year-old driver of the KTM big bike that hit him, suffered a head injury and cuts.
The driver claimed he was driving on Third Road when the pedestrian ran in front of him at a crosswalk.
The accident is one of several that have occurred in the spotlight since Jan. 21 when young ophthalmologist Waraluck Supwatjariyakul was killed while crossing Phya Thai Road in Bangkok. A 21-year-old low-level police officer driving a half-million-baht Ducati ran her down, never slowing at the crosswalk.
Sadly, the tragic story is not unique. An average of more than two pedestrians a day die on Thailand’s streets, their 743 bodies last year joining the tens of thousands of motorists who also perish in a country with the sixth-worst road fatality rate in the world in 2019, behind only countries like Zimbabwe, the Congo and Venezuela.
 |
 |
 |
