Road accident situation during festival is a very serious problem. According to the casualty statistics in New Year’s festival 2002 and Songkran festival 2002, the average road tolls were 3.5 and 3.8 persons/hour respectively. It was more than the average road tolls in 2000 (last declaration) by 2.63 and 2.84 times respectively. The purpose of this research is to introduce guidelines for road accident prevention during these festivals. This research consists of 4 main parts, the casualty situation and characteristics of road accident during festivals, the government action in road accident prevention during these festivals, the problems and obstacles in road accident prevention during the festivals in Ayuthaya and the final concerns the formulation of suitable action plan for road accident prevention during these festivals. The result of this research shows that the number of casualties during festivals is very high compared to that of the normal period and its trend is increasing every year. Furthermore, we found that “human” is the main factor contributing to road accident during festival (95.33 percent); the result of the path analysis show that the most importance factor which directly affects the severity of road accident is “Driver Behavior” e.g. not wearing seat belt, exceeding speed limit, not wearing helmets, etc. The result of the study in government action in road accident prevention during these festivals, we found that government has placed greater importance on road accident prevention by setting clear road safety policy for the 2003 New Year and Songkran festivals. In addition, we found that the main problems of road accident prevention during festival in Ayuthaya are: budget limitation, lacking in human resource, poor discipline of road users and dangerous conducts e.g. drink and drive, throwing water at roadside, etc. The action plan for road accident prevention was demonstrated through the study during the festival period. The strategy
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approach was stipulated based on the contributing factors of the road accident occurrences during festival period. As such, the major factor taken into consideration was “human”. In regard to analysis results in general road accident characteristics in festivals and the caused problems and obstacles in road accident prevention in Ayuthaya, were taken into account. In addition, the action plan was categorized into four strategies and sixteen projects. The research results are expected to make contribution to the prevention of traffic accidents during the festivals.
Keywords : Road Accident / Festival / Action Plan / Road Accident Prevention / Path Analysis