Thailand school bus deaths: Could accident make roads safer?

This is despite Thailand’s gradual introduction over the past 15 years of regulations for bus safety laid out by the UNECE, the UN Economic Commission for Europe, a body responsible for establishing international standards in many areas. But application of these rules have been slow and piecemeal.

“The problem is most of the manufacturers in Thailand cannot reach that standard,” says Sumet Ongkittikul, a transport specialist at the Thailand Development Research Institute. “So the implementation has been delayed, to allow them to catch up.

“Also, the regulations only apply to new buses. But most of the buses operating in Thailand are old.”

Modifying old bus chassis with new bodywork is a local industry, where safety standards are for the most part far behind those in many other countries.

It is thought that at least 80% of the buses connecting Thailand’s cities are in this older, adapted category.

“A new bus, from a good manufacturer, is very expensive,” Sumet Ongkittikul explains. “So they use an old chassis, and a local manufacturer to build new bodywork, and that is counted only as an old bus, where the new regulations do not apply.”

For example, UNECE regulation UN R118, which requires bus interiors to be made with non-flammable materials, was officially introduced in Thailand in 2022, but does not apply to buses made before then, or buses adapted using older chassis.

Less flammable materials might have helped mitigate the bus fire on Tuesday.

And even the very limited regulations which did apply to the ill-fated bus appear to have been broken.

According to the police, the bus was inspected in May this year, but they believe the illegal addition of gas cylinders was made after that.

Two days after the accident, the police say they caught the bus owner trying to remove improperly installed gas cannisters from the five other buses.

The company has had its licence to run buses suspended, and the owner has been charged with causing death through negligence, with other criminal charges being considered.

But will this accident finally bring about a change in Thailand’s dire road safety record?