Nowadays, traffic accidents are big problems all over the world. I often see them in Thailand, actually almost everyday. One of the biggest cause of them is drink-driving. In Thailand, you can drive a car when you are drunk. All you have to do is just pay money to the policeman. I was shocked. My friends said there is a law for drink-driving, but it's not working. It's a big problem also.
According to this article, Russians are going to have a very serious law soon. Actually they have a law for drinking-driving, but it is not working well. More than 2,000 people were killed and around 18,000 people injured in traffic accidents attributed to drink-driving in last year (¶. 2). In Some countries like Russia, drivers were allowed to drink a glass, or they are allowed still now. Doctor Tatyana Yakovleva said " a driver with even the legal limit of blood alcohol was twice as likely to have a serious road accident, compared with an alcohol-free driver" (¶. 3).
There is a very serious law about drink-driving in Japan. Driving and drinking cannot go together. If you do this, you have to pay a penalty which is huge, and you lose your license. Even if you sit in the car that a drunk drives, you have to pay a penalty also. It doesn't matter you are drunk or not. The person who sold the drink to the driver have to pay it too.
Drink and drive must not go together. The best reason to solve the problem is setting a strict law. If we will be able to have a strict law about it all over the world, traffic accidents are going to decrease a lot, but if not, we will always have this problem.
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When Australia brought in a law that banned driving with any alcohol at all in your body, the traffic accident rates dropped a lot.
ReplyDeleteIt is illegal to drink any alcohol and drive in Australia, and the penalty includes automatic loss of licence. Repeat offences result in a prison sentence as well as high fines and permanent loss of a driving licence.
This seems just to me, because people who drink alcohol and drive, even if it is legal, are a threat to other people and often kill other people. I think that drinking and driving is immoral for that reason - killing and threatening the lives of others is wrong. And I agree with Akira that it should also be illegal.
And connecting with our discussion this morning, I don't think Thai belief in Buddhism is helping to reduce this immorality, or any other crimes in Thailand.
Not directly related, but I just thought of it: which society is more violent: the US, where 17% of people have no religious beliefs, or Thailand, where almost everyone believes in a religion?
On the other hand, since alcohol is a major contributing factor to domestic and other violence, maybe that last question is more closely related to Akira's topic than I thought at first.
But I think it's OK to drink if you do not drive or do anything else that harms or threatens others. But isn't that also true of every other drug as well as alcohol? If no one is being harmed or threatened by someone's personal drug use, whether marijuana, alcohol, heroin or some other drug, shouldn't that drug use be legal? Shouldn't personal use of all drugs be as legal as alcohol is?
ReplyDelete(See my comment on Book's post about Lindsay Lohan for more on this.)
Peter,
ReplyDeleteI somewhat agree with you that Buddhism doesn't help much to reduce immoral behaviour in Thailand. The reason is that only few people have studied and come to understand Buddha's teaching. Most people know what the five precepts are, but don't know why they are considered morally wrong. For example, my husband is also a Buddhist but he doesn't think it is morally wrong to get drunk so long as he doesn't do anything else wrong. Unlike christianity, the religious ritual like going to a temple and listening to a sermon on every Buddist holy day has died out for many decades.
I also like to point out that committing a crime is not only related to the immorality. There are another factors such as economic status or mentally ill.
Akira, I agree with you about drunk and drive must not to be together and enforcing the law would be another good solution. Anyway, this article reminds me to Pat's idea on "Opposing Stephen Law: final comments" which tell you control of intrinsic desire. I think people who drive and drunk already know that the cause and effect, but they don't take it as serious problem. On the other hand, they couldn't control their intrinsic desire, so let laws control them, must be reasonable solution.
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