Fighting against drunk driving
Impaired driving: An impossible fight against the police, the law and religion
The biggest single problem with road safety in Thailand is the extent of drinking before driving. Today 50 to 60 percent of traffic victims are affected by alcohol and in about half the cases of fatalities, alcohol can be traced in their blood.
Still it is limited what the politicians and the police are doing about the road accident problem. That is the opinion of a frustrated Dr. Tairjing Siriphanich, who in 2002 created an NGO called: the Don't Drive Drunk Foundation. Three years ago testing for alcohol was almost non-existing. Then, in July 1999, the police started a big campaign - 112,000 vehicles in Bangkok were stopped over 3 years.