Nine people were injured, two of them seriously, when a motorist, apparently driving at speed, rammed into four other cars and two motorcycles on Sukhaphiban 5 Road in Bangkok’s Sai Mai district late Thursday night.
Sai Mai District’s voluntary emergency officials said today that they received reports of a series of accidents, apparently caused by one motorist.
In the first incident, the culprit’s car scraped two sedans and one pickup truck at the entrance to Soi 73 and sped off. It then collided into a fourth car, near the entrance of Soi 86 and, subsequently, rammed into the rear of two motorcycles at the entrance to Soi 90.
The driver appeared to have lost control of his car, which ploughed onto the sidewalk at Wongsakorn market intersection and stopped. Police escorted the driver to the police station for fear that he might be harmed by relatives of the victims or by spectators who witnessed the incident.
One of the victims, Jirawat, told the police that, as he was driving along, a car came close up behind him, prompting him to accelerate to get away, but the driver kept following him before ramming into the rear of his car and speeding away.
Police say that they breathalysed the suspect on the spot, which proved negative.
The driver, only identified only as “Tat”, claimed that he was stressed and suffering from insufficient sleep, blacked out while driving and was unaware that he was involved in multiple accidents.
He did, however, offer an assurance that he will pay compensation to all the accident victims, adding that he has met with relatives of some of the victims and had apologisedto them.
Meanwhile, his wife reportedly told the police that she had warned her husband not to work too hard and to get some rest, but he insisted that he was still OK and could work.
A relative of a seriously injured victim said, after seeing the CCTV footage, that she does not, however, believe Tat’s claim that he blacked out while driving. She noted that, after the first accident, the driver appeared to be able to continue driving, suggesting that he did not black out as claimed.
Pol Col Rangsan Sornsing, superintendent of Sai Mai district police, said that four charges had been filed against the driver, including reckless driving causing injury to the other people, carelessness and fleeing the scene of multiple accidents.
The driver has, however, been released on bail.
