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Published on January 23, 2008

The judges said the Bt10,747,000 demanded by the family of Piyathida Chotemanas was not too high as claimed by the BMTA and Bus 207 driver Thawim Saengdej in its appeal.

The amount of money was calculated based on the estimated Bt46,000 salary Piyathida could have earned after her graduation from Assumption University within weeks of the accident on September 14, 2004.

Nam, the father of Piyathida, said his daughter, who could speak English and Japanese, was planning to work as an air hostess after graduation. The duration calculated was 20 years based on job responsibilities of a cabin stewardess on standard airlines.

The Criminal Court had earlier sentenced Thawim to 18 months in prison for causing her death through negligence and for driving his bus knowing that its automatic doors did not work.

They also ordered him and the BMTA, and three other people, to jointly pay the victim's family, plus 7.5 per cent interest.

Piyathida's father said later that he wanted the defendants to pay a high price for their failure to provide safe public transportion.  He said he would donate most of the money to charities helping road accident victims.

He said the BMTA was known to brush aside its responsibility for injuries or deaths, caused by either its own city buses or those operating under its concession, to insurance companies that were required to pay Bt750,000 to each victim - a precondition those firms agreed to comply with before signing insurance package deals with the BMTA. "If I had not pushed for the Bt10 million damages in my appeal, the BMTA would have got away with the automatic Bt750,000 paid by insurance companies for the death of my daughter," he added.

The Nation