This is the dramatic moment a hero motorcycle rider saved a toddler who ran into a busy road in front of oncoming cars.

CCTV footage shows Peerapong Chumpolwadee, 31, waiting to merge into the traffic flow at an intersection in Pathum Thani province, Thailand, on March 4.

When he spotted the five-year-old boy sprinting past him towards a security guard on the median strip, he jumped from his bike and scooped up the youngster before an approaching vehicle could hit him.

Peerapong later returned the boy to his worried mother, who thanked him for his heroic act.

The motorcycle delivery rider said: 'I didn't really think about it. My instincts took over and I ran to the boy as quickly as I could.

'I can understand why it happened because children run away without being aware of danger.

'His mother was very relieved. She will not let him wander away again.'

Thailand has one of the world's worst road safety records. Ministers have set the goal of reducing fatalities from 32.7 deaths per 100,000 people to 12 per 100,000 people by the year 2027.

However, a lack of road safety education in schools, cheap loans for cars, notoriously easy driving tests, police failures to enforce road laws as well as endemic corruption and chronic under-investment in infrastructure hamper the efforts.