Koh EweAnd
Panisa Aemocha,BBC Thai
The driver of a freight train involved in a fatal collision with a public bus in Bangkok has tested positive for drugs and has been charged with dangerous driving, authorities say.
The collision, which occurred at the Asoke-Din Daeng crossing on Saturday afternoon, saw the train crash into a public bus which had stopped on the railway tracks.
The bus caught fire, killing eight people and injuring dozens. Initial reports suggested the bus had become stuck on the tracks due to heavy traffic, preventing the crossing barriers from lowering properly.
The Asoke-Din Daeng crossing is notoriously hectic and leads to one of Bangkok’s busiest intersections.
The bus driver and the guard responsible for lowering the barrier – which is done manually – were also charged, police said.
Authorities have ordered mandatory drug and alcohol tests for all train drivers and railway staff before their shift, said Pichet Kunadhamraks, director general of Thailand’s railway transport department.
Police did not say what drugs were found in the train driver’s urine analysis.
Pichet said preliminary results from the train’s black box showed its emergency braking system was only activated about 100 meters from the bus, which was not enough to avoid a collision, Thai PBS reported.
Dr Amorn Phimarnmas, president of the Structural Engineers Association of Thailand, told the BBC he estimates more than 100,000 road vehicles pass through the Asoke-Din Daeng level crossing every day – above the safety threshold for such crossings.
At level crossings, motorcyclists are often known to drive through safety barriers to avoid traffic and avoid being slowed down by passing trains.
The railroads were built long before the surrounding roads, and the city grew around them, giving way to a “normalization of risk,” Amorn says.
“That’s when risk becomes routine. People think everything will be fine and keep going, until one day we end up with exactly the kind of disaster we just saw.”
Additional reporting by Thanyarat Doksone