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Published on Taipei Times http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2007/02/10/2003348439 Johnny Neihu's Mailbag Yes, it's disturbing that more isn't being done to lower Taiwan's road death toll. It's even more disturbing that we lack the metaphysical resources to get to the heart of the problem.
Deadly drivers and ESP Dear Johnny, Yet again I see Taiwan making the least amount of effort to curb an increasingly popular way of killing innocent people. If I walk down the street with a gun in my hand and shoot someone, I will be charged with murder -- yes or no? If I drive down the street drunk and kill someone, I get a slap on the wrist, offer to pay some money and get on with the rest of my life. I suggest the authorities develop a national toll-free number that people can call to report someone stupid enough to drink and drive -- or even think about it. People caught should lose their license for at least one year on first offense, be fined at least three months' salary and have to be put on a register available to insurance companies. Second-time offenders should be banned from driving for life, have their car taken away and face a jail sentence. If you're going to do it, do it properly. Steve Fenton Taichung
Johnny replies: Hey, Steve, are you saying that I can't drive my cherry-red Audi down the West Coast Expressway at 200kph while chugging on a 2 liter container of home-mixed whisky and coke? Damn, and I thought Taiwan was a free country. Live free or drive trying, I say. Seriously, I share your frustration at the lenience with which police and the law treat not only drunk drivers but irresponsible drivers generally. I've seen enough bodies sprawled on asphalt and running of red lights to know that we could be doing a lot more. I am especially impressed by your proposal that we inform on people who are merely thinking of drinking and driving. The person on the other end of the toll-free line could contact an operative in the immediate area who would arrive at the pub/party/KTV/gentlemen's club and lecture the imbiber on the evils of alcohol and how it hurts to have one's head shatter a windscreen. Or we could establish a Minority Report-style law enforcement unit in which three bald babes lying in a tank of water detect which of our compatriots are about to get behind the wheel of a car that they can't drive very well even when sober.
But Taiwanese women (nuns excepted) aren't really into shaving their heads, so how do we get the extrasensory data we need to save lives?
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