A driver was killed and 14 schoolchildren injured when he reportedly blacked out at the wheel in a horror schoolbus crash in Thailand.

Samphat Yangmee, 69, was said to have lost consciousness as he was driving the pupils home from school in Roi Et province, on January 5.

Terrified passengers screamed as the light-blue truck veered off the road, crashing into a streetlight before flipping over on the roadside.

Police rushed to the scene at around 4 pm local time, where they found the children trapped in the overturned vehicle.

Footage shows rescue workers using cutting tools to extract the 15 passengers - 14 pupils and a villager - from the wreckage. Three suffered serious injuries while the remaining 12 were treated for minor wounds.

The driver Samphat was found dead in his seat with severe injuries to his left leg and bruising on his chest.

Police Lieutenant Colonel Thanyawit Panthura of the Phanom Phrai Police Station said: 'The bus had struck the street light with such force that it snapped and collapsed, sending the vehicle flipping onto its roof on the roadside.'

Samphat's sister-in-law, Panya Juratao, 60, said he had visited the hospital earlier that day over dizziness.

He returned in the afternoon to drive the kids home, but reportedly fainted during the trip.

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 along with notoriously easy driving tests, police failures to enforce road laws, and chronic under-investment in infrastructure, all appear to hamper the efforts.