A NATIONAL campaign was underway today to implement throughout Thailand the awareness of motorcycle safety first generated by Phuket's ''100 percent helmet'' campaign.

The strategy, inspired by Phuketwan Phuket Person of the Year 2010, Colonel Wanchai Eakpornpit, first spread from Phuket City to the whole of Phuket, and now a national campaign has begun, based on the colonel's ideas.

Laws that require pillion passengers on motorcycles to also wear safety helmets are now being enforced nationwide in an effort to cut the cost in lives, crippling injuries and economic damage caused by needless crashes.

Early evidence indicates that Colonel Wanchai's strategy has generated a change in thinking, especially among families and the young.

Critics are right in saying that there are still people who try to ride whenever they can on Phuket without helmets, but the seeds of a change in attitude have been sewn more effectively by Colonel Wanchai's strategy than ever before.

By engaging community leaders in supporting his campaign, by compelling rule-breakers to watch a Phuket-made safety film, by signing up schools to penalise students who do not wear helmets, Colonel Wanchai started many people thinking . . . and wearing helmets.

Tearaways take a little longer. The new British Ambassador to Thailand, Asif Ahmad, made the point yesterday that tourists also must wear helmets when they visit Thailand.

''The biggest challenge for us is to educate and advise our own citizens: Do not do in Thailand what you would not do at home,'' he said.

''Nobody in the UK would go on a motorcycle without a helmet. It's impossible.''

The long, large list of tourist visitors who have died or been seriously injured - and often had to pay huge costs for treatment when uninsured - will being to shrink if Thais first set the example, and the law is enforced.

Colonel Wanchai, formerly superintendent at Phuket City Police Station, was promoted early this year to a more senior post in the province of Ranong. About 500 community leaders turned out to farewell him from Phuket.

*PHUKET'S annual ''Lucky Licence Plate'' auction raised 23.5 million baht over the weekend. Most of the cash will go to the Department of Land Transport's Road Safety Foundation.