On Friday, the second day of the so-called “seven dangerous New Year holidays”, 576 road accidents happened, killing 49 people and injuring 609, said Karun Sakulpradit, permanent secretary for the Education Ministry.

It was Karun’s turn to address journalists yesterday on the monitored road accident statistics at the Road Accidents Prevention and Reduction for 2018 New Year Operation Centre at the Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department.

The accumulated statistics showed there were 1,053 accidents on Thursday and Friday, killing 92 people and injuring 1,107.

Karun said most – more than 42 per cent – had been caused by drunk driving, followed by speeding (23 per cent).

He said most – nearly 78 per cent – of vehicles in the accidents were motorcycles. And most – about 68 per cent – of the accidents happened on straight roads.

Karun said Nakhon Si Thammarat was the province with the highest number of accidents – 25. So far, Phitsanulok, Pathum Thani and Ubon Ratchathani had the highest number of deaths (3), while Nakhon Si Thammarat had the biggest number of injuries (29).

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha said yesterday that he would assign the Transport Ministry to figure out how to improve road networks by creating web-like transport routes to avoid traffic congestion.

Prayut said heavy congestion often occurred during long holidays, like the New Year holidays, because most vehicles used the main roads.

The prime minister said relevant government agencies must inform the people of alternative routes so that they could avoid the heavily congested main roads.

“The problem is that vehicles are meeting one another on all major roads. So, I would like the roads to be designed like a web that can be inter-connected,” Prayut said.

The prime minister said it still needed to be ascertained where the subsidiary and alternative routes could be built to supplement the main roads. He said the government might build short roads as bypasses for heavily congested main roads.

He added that the Transport Ministry had already improved several roads in the North and had reduced road accidents at sharp curves over the past three years.

Meanwhile, a total of 727 people were arrested for drunk driving on Thursday and Friday, a senior official said.

Thawatchai Thaikhiew, deputy permanent secretary at the Justice Ministry, said the data had been collected by the Corrections Department, which learned that 1,107 motorists had been arrested and would be given social service punishment because of bad driving over those two days.

Of this, 727 were arrested for drunk driving, 43 for reckless driving, one for road racing, and 336 for testing positive for drug use while driving. He said 70 of the cases happened in Bangkok, 48 in Surin, 45 in Mahasarakham, 36 in Nonthaburi and 24 in Chachoengsao.