According to official figures, some 14,000 people are killed on Thailand's roads every year. But other studies suggest that the real death toll could be twice that figure.

Which is one reason why the Thailand Accident Research Centre (TARC) was inaugurated last month, by no less a personage than the King of Sweden, Carl Gustav.

The Swedish link was that Volvo is sponsoring almost half of the set-up cost, and contributing expertise gained from more than 30 years of study by the company's own Traffic Accident Research Team.

By systematically collecting data, TARC researchers will establish a base of information about local accidents in Bankok and its environs, which are a teeming traffic nightmare where motorcycles are often occupied by four people at a time, and many people travel unprotected in the backs of pickup trucks.

"When an accident occurs, the consequences are often devastating for large numbers of people," says Hans Norin, project manager at TARC.

The team at TARC plan to investigate every accident within a mile of their headquarters, and its membership includes a vehicle expert and a roads expert to give a broad view on different elements of the accident.

Experts from Sweden are installing an analysis system, and local researchers are being trained in both Bankok and in Gotenberg in Sweden.

Eventually, Volvo hopes to withdraw from the operation, leaving it completely owned and run by Thais.

Volvo's own expertise is based on detailed examination of Volvo cars involved in accidents over three decades.

Whenever a serious accident occurs involving a Volvo, within 100 km of Gotenberg, the Traffic Accident Research Team is alerted via the city's official emergency switchboard.

At least one person from Volvo will go to the scene, day or night, and there is cooperation from police who often delay moving the car until a team member arrives.

The team conducts a general study of the incident, which includes photographing and measuring in detail. The team also interviews all involved, including witnesses and the police on the scene.

The car is then transported to a workshop, or to the Volvo Cars Safety Centre, for detailed examination.

All the information is analysied to provide an idea of the kinds of injuries that happen with different types of accident, and added to what is now a massive data base of information. The results are also compared with those from other international studies. In addition, the most serious accidents among the 50,000 claims submitted each year to Volvo's own insurance company in Sweden, Volvia, are analysed, based on a claim cost threshold.

The team has studied more than 30,000 such accidents since it was set up. And its own antecedents are based back in the 50s when the first survey of traffic accidents by Volvo resulted in the development of the world's first 3-point seatbelt by Volvo engineer Nils Bohlin.

The company became the first to fit them as standard in the front seats of its cars in 1959, and it was also the first car manufacturer to fit rear seat-belts as standard, in 1967.

I wore a seat-belt before I ever turned on the ignition of a car. My dad was the first person in my home town town to order seatbelts with his new Ford Consul, six weeks before I was old enough to drive. For that six weeks, I got into the car every day and practiced clutch use and gearshifts with the car stationary. But every time I got in, even though I was going nowhere, I 'clunk-clicked' before the term was ever coined. And by force of habit I do so ever since.

And no, I've not been in an accident that would have injured me if I wasn't belted in. But I could well have been. People close to me have. They could be dead. Two would almost certainly be.

Maybe they learned to buckle up from my example. And for the fact that I have my wife and one of my children alive today, I should conceivably thank my dad, for being interested enough to spend extra money on a technology that at the time was neither considered necessary by most motorists, and that wasn't sexy, or even well well known in a car sales showroom.

And I should also thank Nils Bohlin. Even though the concept went as far back as 1908, when in some of the bespoke cars of the time you could order seatbelts. Possibly just to prevent you from being tossed out of the car in a pothole encounter. Because cars rarely ran into each other in those days.

So if some Thai family remains alive because of TARC, I know how grateful they will feel.

The overall cost of a fatal accident in Ireland is currently estimated at close to a million euros. We have more than 400 fatal motor accidents a year. Every one of those that need not have been fatal would have left resources for people on a too-long waiting list for a heart-lung transplant, or at the other end of the scale for a relatively more simple - but equally life-enhancing for the recipient - hip replacement.

Maybe you were a fan of Princess Di. The only person to survive that particular crash was the one who was wearing his seat-belt, her bodyguard. Maybe he should have told her. Maybe he did. Maybe she didn't listen. Certainly she wasn't wearing.

A last thought, for you at home reading this. If you are still amongst the 30-40 per cent of people who don't buckle up when you get into a car, do it the next time.

For your children's sake if for no other reason.