Here's the link to the article in question
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1890275,00.html
Unhappy Hour: The fight against alcohol abuse is enough to drive two distant nations to drink
Point 1: The Tourism Minister claimed it would drive away foreign visitors and further damage a vital industry already reeling from global recession and the shutdown of Bangkok's two airports by anti-government protesters last year.
"It" in this case meant the proposal to ban the sales of alcohol during the Thai New Year. It is quite true that were the ban to be put in placed, the alcohol industry will be badly hit. However, the severity of the problem willbe dependent on some factors. When the article mentions "foreign visitors", it did not state how much of the sales of liquor comes from the tourists. The income from them maybe quite small compared to that from locals. This has been implied in the previous sentence "Yet excessive drinking is deeply rooted in the culture. "Thais are fun-loving people," said a recent editorial in the newspaper Thai Rath. "We all know that a party is not complete without drinks.""
One question that keeps coming up, how does the sales of alcohol be affected by "global recession and the shutdown of Bangkok's two airports by anti-government protesters last year"?
Point 2: In Britain, PM Gordon Brown rejected minimum pricing as unfair to the "responsible, sensible, majority of moderate drinkers."
Responsible, sensible, majority of moderate drinkers? This does not show that they will not be drink drivers. How are we to predict someone's actions when under the influence of alcohol? Then again, it is not an issue of fairness. The point of the increase in price is to discourage drinking in general in hope to reduce number of drink drivers, not to target drink drivers specifically. Also, is it really suitable to use fairness as a gauge for vices?
Point 3: More people are killed by drunk driving in Thailand in two weeks than in Britain in an entire year.
This is yet another case of misleading use of statistics. The author has not taken into account of number of cars, availability of alcohol and population density. Remember that one drink driver does not have to kill one person only. In certain areas of Thailand, the population density is very high, thus a single drink driver can cause multiple casualties.
Point 4: Curbing alcohol abuse among young people, for example, has as much (if not more) to do with parenting as with policing.
Easy for the government to displace responsibility onto the parents. Even though there might be parenting problems, the government still holds a significant amount of responsibility in educating the public. Say this statement is the cause of having a nanny government, but it still is true. If the parents can't teach their child, the government should be able to. Campaigns, lessons, fines or jail time, either one would have to work
Cheers, (pun not intended)
It is injustified that the author mainly blames alcohol for the result of drunk driving and for any related road accidents. Consumption of alcohol itself is not a vice. It is the abuse of it that makes it destructive to the individual and even to the third party. There are several other important factors that can lead a higher rate of car accidents in Thailand.
ReplyDeleteFirst, Thailand has a larger population with about 65 million people whereas Britain only has 61 million. Despite a larger population, Thailand's roadways only cover 180,053 km while Britain covers 398,366 km. This shows a possibility that Thailand has poorer traffic and road conditions. Combined with its over-populated size, car accidents involving druk-driving are more prone to occur.
Secondly, the author should not have placed most of the blame on the individual's lack of responsibility. The government is largely at fault too. It did not implement policies that are effective. Raising the age limit for the consumption of alcohol is not the key to solving the problem of drunk driving. Even young adults still commit the crime. Perhaps the lack of proper education results in the people not fully aware of the serious consequences of their irresponsible acts on the road. Hence they drink-drive and become havoc-makers on the roads of Thailand. If the government had invested more on the quality of education for the society, the number of car accidents could have been lower.
Last but not least, it is pointless for the government to constantly have campaigns and heavy penalities for road offenders especially if they are uneducated. These people are not fully aware of their consequences!
As much as the author places emphasis on the individual's responsibility, more light should be shed on the efficiency and effectiveness of government intervention, so as to reduce drunk-driving and minimise road accidents.
I agree with the point made that by putting more emphasis on vocal antialcohol movement in which legal drinking age is raised and putting a ban to alcohol-related advertisement in Thailand would not be effective enough to control the drunk driving. Young adults in Thailand are able to drive legally at the age of 18. So by raising the age for legal drinking to 20 would only represent a small difference in excluding a small percentage of youths who are likely to drink drive between 18 to 20 years old. Hence it does not make any significance reduction in the number of accidents and deaths caused by alcohol consumption. Besides, we do not know the statistics of which age group of the drunk drivers is most likely to cause the most number of accidents too. Also, by not showing alcohol-related advertisement, it would not solve the problem of rising deaths incurred by drink driving, but only worsen the alcohol's market, bringing lesser revenue to the country, which means less resources can be put in to policies to eradicate the problem. With education not easily access in Thailand, banning of alcohol-related advertisement does not make any difference. And so, it goes back to the education problem point out by Sabrina in the above comment.
ReplyDeleteHowever, does the statistic shown of having 16% of road deaths caused by drunk driving is really a result of having combination of strong policing, heavy penalties and shocking public-awareness campaigns? Even if it is so, is 16% a rise or fall? It cannot tell how effective strong policing is. Maybe, there are other factors that cause a fall, i assume, in the road deaths caused by drunk driving, such as the rise in the price of alcohol sold, the availability of substitutes which people can enjoy without consuming alcohol in parties or even a sudden change in taste and preference when they realize that drinking is not 'hip' anymore and many more reasons. Hence, there might be an inaccuracy in the statistic used.
- candy (: