Don't drink and drive

By Park Moo-jong

Around this time of year, people are busy attending year-end parties of various kinds, traditionally dubbed "forget-the-year-parties."

The parties, especially for men, usually turn into binges, accompanied by "poktanju" or boilermakers, called "somaek" made of "soju" and "maekju" (beer).

Many people drink to forget the hardships and ordeals they suffered during the year and to bid farewell to the outgoing year.

But then, I have a bitter memory of what happened 31 years ago in 1984 after a year-end-party at my fraternity.

One of our fraternity brothers, a promising engineer, smashed his car into a tree near the roadside around midnight and was killed instantly. He was dead drunk.

One consolation in the sadness from his tragic accident was that he didn't take anybody with him.

He was a heavy drinker who seemed to have no limit, while my capacity was three glasses of beer mixed with whiskey (at that time we used whiskey instead of soju).

He seemed to have had an unusually strong tolerance for alcohol and insisted he was not drunk, hopping in his car despite my efforts to stop him from getting behind the wheel. That was it. His young wife became a widow and his two children lost their father.

What was bad was that social awareness about the dangers of drinking and driving was weak and law enforcement authorities were not that concerned about the "crime" of drinking and driving

The accident spurred me to recall my visit to Sweden in 1982. I attended a dinner hosted by a Swedish parliamentarian. A local couple in their early 40s at the function surprised me with their strict rule about drinking.

Prior to the meal, the wife said to her husband, "Honey, it's my turn tonight." I didn't know immediately what she meant. He replied, "Right, you drink tonight. I will drive."

At present, of course, drinking and driving, namely driving while intoxicated (DWI) or driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI), is strongly monitored and enforced by the police as a social felony that threatens the lives of others as well as the drunk driver, himself or herself.

In particular, Korea has a unique system of professional "relief driver," called in Korean "daeri gisa," who drives the car of a drunk person for 15,000 to 30,000 won ( $12-24), depending on the distance.

The number of such drivers is nearly 100,000 across the nation, hinting at the difficulty of finding full-time jobs, plus the convenience of smartphones, through which it is easy to locate relief drivers along with their phone numbers.

But the deadly habit of DWI dies hard despite society’s efforts to stop it.

According to the latest police statistics, traffic accidents decreased by 23 percent from 290,491 in 2000 to 223,552 in 2014. But the number of accidents caused by drunk drivers dropped only 14.3 percent from 28,074 to 24,043.

This means that the ratio of DWI accidents, compared with the total number of traffic accidents, rose to 10.7 percent from 9.7 percent. The ratio of fatal casualties rose to 12.4 percent from 11.9 percent.

We remember that many famous entertainers and athletes, both at home and abroad, have disgraced themselves by driving drunk.

On Wednesday, a 68-year-old retired Army Major Gen. was booked without detention on suspicion of causing a traffic accident while driving under the influence and attempting to flee the scene in Socheo-dong, Seoul, around 5 p.m.

The risk of a driver under the influence of alcohol being killed in an accident is at least eleven times that of drivers who are sober, medical research shows.

Yet, people still drive while they are drunk. Why?

Many, many cases, particularly violent ones, prove that alcohol often boosts one's confidence and distorts one's perceptions and judgment.

Drunk driving is a national menace, a national tragedy and a national disgrace, as former U.S. President Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) said when appointing the Presidential Commission on Drunk Driving in 1982, now called the National Commission Against Drunk Driving.

Some U.S. states, like North Carolina and Washington, prosecute drunk drivers who cause fatalities on charges of first-degree murder with a maximum punishment of life imprisonment, while in Korea, they face criminal punishment of up to 10 years in prison.

Driving a motor vehicle with a blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.05 percent or higher constitutes drunk driving in Korea. It takes around three shots of soju, 500 cc of beer or one shot of whiskey for the average Korean male adult weighing 60-70kg to attain that level.

Drunk drivers, if caught, mostly at checkpoints, have their license suspended or revoked depending on their BAC or the time of their violations.

But it is too generous to allow them to have their licenses again after a certain period of time, as stipulated by law. Driving is a privilege, not a right.

Since every single injury and death caused by drunk driving is preventable, we should not hesitate to permanently prevent those who lack good judgment from taking the wheel.

A brief Internet search tells how to avoid a breathalyzer test at the sobriety checkpoint. But everything is useless.

What is most important, even if you drink a small amount of alcohol, is not to get behind the wheel under any circumstances.

Don't let friends, company colleagues or whoever, drive either. Take their keys, call a relief driver, call a cab or do whatever is necessary.

If you are going to a year-end party tonight, TGIF, be sure to leave your car at home.

Park Moo-jong is the senior advisor of The Korea Times. He served as the president-publisher of the paper from 2004 to 2014 after working as a reporter of the daily since 1974. He can be reached at moojong@ktimes.co.kr.