Driver of Fatal Thai Train Crash Tested Positive for Drugs, Police Say

At 3:41 p.m. on Saturday, May 16, 2026, freight train No. 2126, hauling cargo from Laem Chabang port to Bang Sue Junction, barreled into a Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) Route 206 passenger bus stopped on a level crossing beneath the Makkasan Airport Rail Link station [1]. The collision pushed the wreckage roughly 50 metres along the tracks, igniting a fire that engulfed the bus, a motorcycle, and several cars [2]. Eight people — all bus passengers — were killed. Thirty-three others were injured, at least two critically [3].

Within 24 hours, Thai police announced that the train's driver had tested positive for narcotics and did not hold a valid rail transport license [4]. The announcement dominated headlines. But as the wreckage was cleared from Asok-Din Daeng Road, a harder question emerged: Was an impaired operator the cause of this disaster, or a symptom of a railway system that has been failing for decades?

What Happened at the Crossing

The Makkasan level crossing sits on one of central Bangkok's busiest corridors. The road handles tens of thousands of vehicles daily — far more than the crossing was designed for [5]. On Saturday afternoon, heavy traffic caused the Route 206 bus to stop directly on the tracks while waiting at a red light [1]. With the bus blocking the crossing, the automated barriers could not lower [6].

Witnesses, however, reported that the barriers showed signs of malfunction even before the bus became stuck. Video circulated on social media appearing to show the electronic crossing system failing to activate warning signals as the freight train approached [7]. Railway Supply, an industry publication, reported that investigators identified "suspected serious technical negligence" in the automated gate operating system [8].

The bus driver, Lapit Thongboon, 56, remains hospitalized with severe burns to his torso and legs [4]. The train driver, Sayomporn Sornkul, the barrier operator (identified as Mr. Uthen), and Lapit have all been charged — with reckless driving causing death, negligence causing death and injury, and related offenses respectively [9].

The Drug Test: What We Know and Don't Know

Police announced on May 17 that Sayomporn's post-crash urine screening returned positive for narcotics [4]. The Department of Rail Transport's Director-General, Dr. Pichet Kunathamarak, confirmed Sayomporn also lacked a train operator's license issued by the department — raising immediate questions about how an unlicensed, untested employee was operating a heavy freight train through central Bangkok [10].

The specific substance or substances detected have not been publicly disclosed as of May 18, with authorities indicating that detailed laboratory results would follow [11]. Thailand's rapid urine screening kits — widely used by police — can detect methamphetamine, cannabis, opioids, and other categories, but are preliminary tools. Confirmatory testing through gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, the international gold standard for forensic toxicology, typically takes days to weeks [12].

The timeline of the test itself raises questions. In the United States, the Federal Railroad Administration requires post-accident drug and alcohol testing within specified windows — typically within two hours for alcohol and 32 hours for drugs — with strict chain-of-custody protocols [13]. Whether Thai authorities administered the test within a comparable window, and whether the chain of custody would withstand legal challenge, remains unclear. Thailand has no publicly available equivalent to the FRA's 49 CFR Part 219 regulations governing post-incident testing of rail employees [13].

The barrier operator Uthen's case illustrates the ambiguity: his initial rapid screening also returned positive for narcotics, but a subsequent test showed no substances in his system [11]. This contradiction — possibly reflecting a false positive from a rapid kit — underscores why confirmatory lab results are necessary before drawing conclusions.

An Unlicensed Driver in the Cab

Beyond the drug test, the revelation that Sayomporn did not hold a valid rail transport license may be the more damning finding. The Department of Rail Transport has demanded an investigation into how SRT supervisors allowed an unlicensed individual to operate a train [10]. Sayomporn has been suspended and faces serious disciplinary proceedings in addition to criminal charges [4].

No publicly available information indicates whether Sayomporn had prior failed drug tests or documented behavioral red flags. The SRT does not publish its internal drug-screening protocols, and no Thai-language or English-language regulatory document equivalent to the U.S. FRA's mandatory random testing program appears to exist in the public domain [13]. If the SRT conducts pre-employment or random drug screening of operators, the frequency, methodology, and auditing of those tests remain opaque.

The Structural Case: A System Designed to Fail

Transport experts and commentators have argued that focusing on the driver's drug test obscures systemic failures that made this crash — or one like it — a near-certainty.

The Thaiger, a Thai news outlet, published an analysis titled "Train-bus collision at Bangkok's Makkasan was not an accident. It was a system designed to fail" [14]. The piece identified three sequential safety layers that all collapsed:

1. Barriers and signaling. The automated crossing barriers did not lower. Whether due to the bus blocking the mechanism or an independent malfunction, the first line of defense did not function [7][8].

2. Traffic-signal coordination. Bangkok's road traffic lights and SRT's rail signals do not communicate with each other. Signal pre-emption technology — which automatically halts road traffic when a train approaches — has been available since the 1980s and is standard in most developed rail systems. It is not deployed at this crossing or most others in Thailand [14].

3. Yellow-box junctions. The crossing lacked painted markings prohibiting vehicles from entering without a clear exit — a standard feature in cities from London to Hong Kong [14]. Without such markings or CCTV enforcement, bus drivers have no physical or legal deterrent against stopping on tracks in congested traffic.

The SRT itself contributes to the accountability vacuum. The agency cites a 1963 regulation stipulating that it is only responsible for barrier maintenance at crossings where roads were built before the railway. Where the railway predates the road, responsibility falls to local road authorities [14]. This bureaucratic division means that at many crossings, neither party takes clear ownership of safety infrastructure.

Source: State Railway of Thailand / The Thaiger

Data as of May 18, 2026CSV

The numbers are stark. Of Thailand's 2,457 road-railway level crossings across its 4,346-kilometre rail network, only 410 have manned or automatic barriers [14]. Another 186 have traffic signs only. An estimated 620 are illegal or unofficial crossings with no safety infrastructure at all [14]. Between 2005 and 2021, 44% of the 437 documented incidents occurred at these unofficial crossings [14].

A Railway Drowning in Debt

The State Railway of Thailand has operated at a financial loss every year since it became a state-owned enterprise under the Transport Ministry in 1951 [15]. As of 2021, SRT's accumulated debt stood at approximately 190 billion baht (roughly $5.3 billion USD) [15]. In the 2026 fiscal year, Thailand's cabinet approved an 18-billion-baht loan simply to cover SRT's operating expenses, because the agency's revenue cannot meet its costs [16].

SRT's revenue goes first to interest payments and loan servicing, with what remains allocated to maintenance of aging infrastructure — rail ties, tracks, bridges, signaling systems, stations, locomotives, and rolling stock [16]. The agency's disbursement rate for its own investment budget has historically lagged other state enterprises: in one fiscal year, SRT managed to spend only 53% of its allotted 60-billion-baht capital budget, compared with an 80% average among Thailand's 55 other state-owned enterprises [15].

The consequences are visible across the network. Aging locomotives and carriages operate beyond their intended service life. Signaling systems rely on decades-old technology. And level-crossing safety equipment — where it exists at all — receives maintenance from an agency that cannot pay its own bills.

Thailand's Deadly 2026: Two Major Rail Disasters in Five Months

The Makkasan collision is Thailand's second major rail disaster in 2026. On January 14, a construction crane working on the Bangkok–Nong Khai high-speed railway project collapsed onto a passenger train carrying 157 people in Sikhio district, Nakhon Ratchasima province, killing 30 and injuring 69 [17]. That disaster, at a construction site linked to China's Belt and Road Initiative, led to criminal charges against 23 individuals, including executives from Italian-Thai Development (ITD) and China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) No. 10 [17].

Source: Wikipedia / Thai media compilations

Data as of May 18, 2026CSV

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul ordered a nationwide audit of all lifting equipment on the high-speed rail project and suspended construction on the Bangkok–Nong Khai line pending results [18]. The SRT proposed terminating its contract with ITD for the affected sections [19].

Yet the Sikhio disaster produced no new rail safety legislation. The audit was specific to high-speed rail construction. No broader reforms to level-crossing safety, signaling modernization, or operator certification emerged in the four months between Sikhio and Makkasan.

Thailand's pattern of deadly transport incidents extends beyond rail. In October 2024, 23 schoolchildren and three teachers were killed when an LNG-powered bus caught fire [5]. In March 2025, concrete slabs fell from a construction overpass, killing five [5]. The WHO estimated Thailand's road traffic death rate at 25.4 per 100,000 population in 2021, among the highest in Asia and well above the global average [20].

Source: World Bank Open Data

Data as of Dec 31, 2019CSV

The Victims and Compensation

The eight people killed were all passengers on the Route 206 bus. By May 17, authorities had identified two victims: Teekha Teekha-Utmakorn, 34, and Tiam Phuangyod, 57 [21]. Forensic identification of the remaining victims was ongoing, complicated by the severity of the fire.

The BMTA pledged initial compensation of approximately 1.5 million baht ($42,000 USD) for each person killed, 80,000 to 500,000 baht ($2,200 to $14,000) for those injured depending on severity, and coverage of all medical expenses under compulsory insurance [22].

The South China Morning Post quoted a resident near the crossing, Anukul Rachaguna, who captured a broader sentiment: "People's lives are cheap here. In the end, no one will be held accountable" [5]. The article noted a class dimension to the disaster — many passengers on BMTA buses are working-class commuters, and delivery riders injured in such incidents often lack company-provided insurance [5].

Under Thai civil law, victims' families can pursue additional compensation through court proceedings, but the process is slow, and settlements from state enterprises historically fall short of amounts awarded in comparable cases in neighboring countries. Thailand's Transport Minister acknowledged that both BMTA and SRT bear institutional responsibility [5].

Who Benefits from the Drug-Test Narrative?

The steelman case that drug-testing the driver serves as a politically convenient focus runs as follows: by centering blame on a single impaired operator, authorities can frame the crash as an aberration — one bad actor in an otherwise functional system — rather than the predictable outcome of chronic underinvestment.

The evidence for systemic failure is substantial. The barriers malfunctioned or could not function. The crossing lacked signal pre-emption technology available for four decades. No yellow-box junction markings prevented vehicles from stopping on the tracks. The driver was unlicensed, meaning SRT's own oversight mechanisms failed before the train ever reached the crossing. And the agency responsible for maintaining the infrastructure carries 190 billion baht in debt [15].

Professor Amorn Pimanmas, an engineering expert, told the South China Morning Post: "As long as we still depend on humans, the system can fail any day. The system must be automated" [5].

The Deputy Transport Minister acknowledged the structural dimensions, stating that "the way the system was designed shows it is far too lax" [5]. But acknowledgment and reform are different things. After the October 2024 school bus fire, after the March 2025 overpass collapse, and after the January 2026 Sikhio crane disaster, Thai officials ordered investigations and audits. Legislation stalled or was never introduced. Construction was temporarily halted, then resumed. The fundamental infrastructure — aging rail stock, unprotected crossings, uncoordinated signals — remained unchanged.

None of this excuses operating a train while impaired or without a license. If confirmatory testing establishes that Sayomporn was under the influence of narcotics while operating a freight train through central Bangkok, he bears personal responsibility for that decision. But the crash occurred at a crossing where multiple independent safety systems should have prevented a collision regardless of the driver's condition. Every one of those systems failed.

What Would Meaningful Reform Look Like?

Transport safety experts and Thai commentators have outlined a series of reforms, none of them novel:

• Grade separation at high-volume crossings — replacing level crossings with overpasses or underpasses. The SRT has been closing some crossings and building grade-separated alternatives as part of double-track railway projects, but progress is slow relative to the scale of the problem [23].
• Signal pre-emption that automatically coordinates road traffic lights with approaching trains, ensuring intersections are clear before a train arrives [14].
• Crossing-occupancy sensors that detect vehicles on tracks and trigger emergency braking signals to approaching trains [14].
• Yellow-box enforcement with CCTV cameras to fine drivers who block crossings [14].
• Mandatory licensing and drug testing with transparent protocols, independent auditing, and public reporting — akin to the FRA's regulatory framework in the United States [13].
• Financial restructuring of the SRT, which cannot maintain its existing infrastructure while servicing 190 billion baht in debt [15][16].

The question is not whether Thai authorities know what needs to be done. The question is whether the political will exists to fund and enforce these measures — or whether, as after every previous disaster, the cycle of investigation, pronouncement, and inaction will repeat.

Eight people boarded a bus on a Saturday afternoon in Bangkok. They did not come home. The reasons extend far beyond one driver's urine test.