Inexcusable remarks

Legislator Andrew Wong Wang-fat's arrest on suspicion of drink-driving comes at a time when party-goers are urged to leave cars at home if they are going to drink.

Two young people who happily celebrated the festive season in Sai Kung last year might be alive today, if the driver who crashed into their motorcycle had been sober. He was arrested at the scene with an alcohol level more than three times the legal limit. The victims were dragged under his car for 15 metres. One was 26, the other 15. The lives of those families are shattered forever, and the driver has a burden to bear that will haunt him all his life. The couple were his friends.

That is why Miriam Lau Kin-yee's irresponsible remarks rating drink-driving as less reprehensible than visiting a prostitute should cause disbelief and outrage in the community. Such ignorance of the facts is the more shocking coming from a legislator who is spokesman for the transport industry.

Sympathy for a colleague in trouble is one thing. Minimising an offence that claims thousands of lives worldwide each year is inexcusable.

But drivers have to bear in mind that even harsher standards are in place this year. The law was tightened in the summer so that an offence is committed if a driver has 50 mgs of alcohol to 100 mls of blood. That amounts, for most people, to one and a half glasses of beer or one glass of wine per hour. So the message is clear: stay off alcohol or find other forms of transport.

Medical tests have repeatedly shown that even a small amount of alcohol affects a person's judgment and reflexes.

So far this year, there have been 19 serious traffic accidents caused by drink-related driving, with 48 people suffering slight injuries, showing an alarming increase over the previous year, even before the party season is upon us. In 1999, of the 55 accidents involving injury, 12 were serious and 43 slight.

The latest advertising campaign says simply: 'If you drink, you can't drive. Think about it.' Anyone who genuinely believes that drink-driving is not a serious offence has a lot of thinking to do.

And visiting prostitutes, incidentally, is not against the law.