Thai PM launches nationwide road safety campaign for Songkran

BANGKOK, April 11 (TNA) - Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has launched road safety campaign caravans which will reach all 77 Thai provinces during the Songkran Festival 2012 over the next seven days. Yingluck said Wednesday during presiding over the event that she would like everyone to be happy during the traditional Thai New Year festivity and the caravans, representing the start the government’s road safety campaign, include alcohol tests on drivers and the promotion of crash helmets. The prime minister insisted that concerned government officials will seriously promote road safety in all possible dimensions to reduce deaths from road accidents during the seven-day Songkran period. Meanwhile, over 3,000 red-shirt supporters of former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra have travelled to Laos to meet and celebrate the Songkran Festival with the exiled ex-Thai premier. As tourists, the people crossed the Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge from Nong Khai province to Vientiane Wednesday morning. Immigration police said that about 10,000 red-shirt people will reportedly cross the border to Laos over the next few days, in addition to general tourists whose number has doubled at the border crossing during this year's Songkran Festival. (TNA)