The Metropolitan Police Bureau has set up about 100 checkpoints throughout Bangkok to check drivers and motorcyclists for alcohol consumption, starting at noon today (Wednesday), because drinking increases during the Songkran festival.
100 more checkpoints have been set up in Bangkok to check drivers for traffic law compliance and to make sure users of motorcycles wear crash helmets.
Pol Maj-Gen Jirasan Kaewsang-ek, the deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, said that about 4,000 policemen are deployed in and around Bangkok to ensure peace and order and to enforce traffic laws strictly during the Songkran festival, as the annual mass exodus from Bangkok to celebrate the traditional Thai New Year starts today.
He disclosed that the police are divided into three groups, with the first looking after people leaving Bangkok, the second maintaining peace and order, including at 11 major locations where celebrations are to be held, and the third preventing road accidents.
Jirasan also said that motorcyclists tend to gather at night for illegal road racing on the otherwise quiet roads of the capital.
