The causes of traffic accidents are also fairly well documented (see graph below). There is probably one prominent inaccuracy in the table below. There are only a limited amount of drunk drivers involved, according to the data provided by the police department. Intuitively one would assume many more accidents involve drunk drivers. One can only assume that an accident is considered to be caused by drunk driving, when it can not be categorized as caused by any of the other causes mentioned. In any case, this is a presumption, and not possible for us to clarify further.
A crackdown on drunk driving is regularly announced, suggesting that the problem is far greater than the number below indicate.
Two major underlying causes are not mentioned. One is overall behaviour of drivers on the road. Being a pedestrian, I regularly cross the zebra crossing on a major road closeby. The crossing also features traffic lights. Pedestrians have about 15 seconds to cross the road on green. Invariably cars and motorcycles just don't stop for pedestrians crossing (until a whole bunch of them is on the crossing). Car and motorcycle drivers simply do not comply with traffic regulations.
Related to this, is poor inforcement of traffic regulations. This obviously is the duty of the traffic police. Traffic police seems to be mainly preoccupied with keeping the traffic moving. Even when cars or motorcycles are blatantly breaking the rules, they often have no inclination of doing something about it. Then again, if they do stop a perpetrator, often no proper fines are imposed, but 'arrangements' are made between the driver and the police officer.
A no-tolerance policy could slowly modify driver behaviour and improve safety on the road in Bangkok and Thailand.