PATTAYA, Thailand – Barry Kenyon was more than a friend – he was a guardian of our community. As a writer, a community advocate, and the Honorary British Consul in Pattaya, he cared deeply for everyone he met. Expats, locals — his door was always open. He helped people navigate more than just legal issues; he helped them find a sense of belonging.
But one day, his life was cut short. A road accident stole him away from the streets he loved and the people he dedicated his life to serving. That tragedy shook me to my core – not only because I lost someone dear, but because it revealed how fragile life on these very roads can be. And he was not the only one.
I later spoke with Mary, a woman who had also lost her younger brother on these same dangerous streets. And then there was Gary, who emailed me repeatedly, urging me to “write” so that people would listen. These voices, these losses, are painful reminders that road accidents in Pattaya are not distant statistics – they are real, personal, devastating.
This is not just a story. It is a call to action
Across Thailand, national road-safety reports show alarming levels of road injuries and fatalities — a crisis that has only worsened in recent years. Reports from road-safety agencies confirm: solving this problem requires more than grief — it requires better policies, better infrastructure, better behavior, and better enforcement. (Pattaya Mail)
But when it happens in your own city… when it takes someone you know… it stops being numbers. It becomes a wound.
For Pattaya – a city with a unique mix of locals, expats, workers, and tourists – publicly accessible, year-on-year road-safety data is surprisingly difficult to obtain. While precise figures for 2024 and 2025 would require access to official databases from the Ministry of Transport, Pattaya City Hall, or Pattaya Police, the patterns are painfully clear: road deaths continue, often preventable, and often affecting ordinary people.
Families need answers. Communities need protection. And Pattaya needs safer roads – now!
Pattaya – a vibrant city, yet its roads remain dangerous. It is surprisingly difficult to find complete, accessible year-by-year traffic-fatality data for Pattaya. Numbers are scattered across agencies, and official summaries are not always publicly available. But regardless of what the statistics may eventually show, reality speaks for itself. Lives are being lost. Families are being torn apart. And tragedies keep repeating on roads that thousands travel every day.
Pattaya’s streets are shared by locals and visitors, by people with different driving cultures, by those rushing to work and those exploring the city. Infrastructure struggles to keep pace with the city’s rapid growth. Enforcement does not always match the intensity of the traffic. The result: real human beings disappearing from our lives far too soon. People like my friend Barry. People like Mary’s brother. People whose names we should never have to learn through obituary notices or police reports.
This is why this article must exist – to let a missing voice speak again. If Barry were still here, I believe he would have written something like this himself: “We cannot bring back those we’ve lost, but we can make these roads safe enough so no one else has to leave the world in the same tragic way.”
A plea – not for blame, but for care, awareness, and change
As his friend – and as Victor – I write this not to assign blame, but to ask all of us – residents, authorities, and the broader community – to see clearly. That the city we love deserves safer roads. That every life lost is one too many. And that this pain should not be something we simply accept and move on from.
Let this piece be both a remembrance of Barry Kenyon, and a beginning – a call for change, so that Pattaya’s roads may once again become paths that lead people home, not away.
Victor Wong (Peerasan Wongsri)
Victor Law Pattaya/Finance & Tax Expert
Email: <[email protected]> Tel. 062-8795414
