The Engineering Institute of Thailand organized a seminar on 'Safety in the event of a bus fire on the road'. The president of the Engineering Institute believes that this type of incident will definitely not happen for the last time because of the lax enforcement of the law. Mr. Watcharin Kasalak, President of the Engineering Institute of Thailand, gave the opening speech that Thailand has had many laws supporting road safety in the past, but the incident involving the school bus carrying students from Uthai Thani Province was caused by lax law enforcement or the inability to enforce the law completely. Many people want this kind of incident to be the last time, but personally, I think this kind of incident will definitely not be the last time because when an incident occurs, it will be a 'flash in the pan'. Our authorities will be strict for 3 days and 7 days, but after that, the incident will return to the same old thing. When there is a campaign, it will be strict again, and if time is left for a long t ime, it will disappear and return to the same old thing, repeating the cycle over and over. Mr. Pichaya Chantranuwat, President of the Building Inspectors Association, said that Thailand has the 9th highest number of deaths from road accidents in the world. It was found that there are 32.7 deaths from road accidents per 100,000 population, or an average of 22,491 deaths per year or an average of 60 deaths per day, making Thailand still the country with the highest number of deaths in the ASEAN region. Mr. Surachet Singam, consultant of the fire protection engineering branch, Engineering Institute of Thailand, said that natural gas for vehicles or NGV is made by compressing natural gas, mostly methane, to a high pressure of approximately 3,000 pounds per square inch and then filling it in a strong and durable tank. Therefore, the installation must be in a safe and suitable place and should be under the supervision of an engineer, not someone who has completed a vocational certificate to install or supervise the installation. The lifespan of a NGV vehicle gas tank or one that uses CNG gas (the same gas, called an NGV/CNG vehicle) is 15 years. Once it reaches its expiration date, it cannot be reused. The passenger vehicle must clearly state on the label what gas the vehicle uses as fuel. The use of a passenger vehicle must have an emergency plan and an assistant driver because in the event of an emergency, the assistant driver will be the one to evacuate because he knows the location in the vehicle very well. From the inspection of the scene by the Engineering Institute of Thailand, it was noted that the vehicle involved in the accident was limited to a speed of 80-90 kilometers per hour. Why were there scratches on the road before the accident? Therefore, there must have been something scraped under the floor of the vehicle, which may have been metal, before it hit the barrier. It was also found that the car that caused the accident had one left shock missing, while the other right shock was rubbed until it was i n an incomplete condition and there were burn marks from the airbag. It was also found that gas tanks 7 and 8 had expired, while gas tanks 9 and 10 were under the driver. In developed countries, if a car uses NGV, the gas tank would be on the roof, but in our country the gas tank would be inside the car, which is like hiding a bomb. Source: Thai News Agency
