If you had chanced to look up at the sky these past few weeks, you would have been surprised by what you may have seen.
There, hovering above the glorious Kingdom of Thailand, was a giant coffin nail floating horizontally in the midday sky. And while it appeared to do no harm in its suspended state, that final nail was threatening to move slowly into a vertical position, upon which it would gather momentum and come crashing down upon us.
It was scheduled to descend on Friday, Dec 19, but a cabinet decision granted us a reprieve. Does that call for a celebration? Well you see, that's the problem.
Thais die on the roads at an alarming rate. The country has a road toll of about twice the global average, according to World Health Organisation statistics.
(Those WHO statistics are probably flawed. They claim 26,000 people are killed on the roads annually, while the Department of Land Transport puts it at a more believable 8,000. And while 8,000 is better than 26,000, it is still alarmingly high.)
We are about to enter what the local media called the "Seven Days Of Death", starting around Christmas Day and finishing a couple of days after New Year, during which we count how many people die on the roads daily.
Last year the figure was 365. How horrific; every 30 minutes somebody was killed.
There is another danger period and that is Songkran, April 12-14. In only five days this year, 248 people were killed. Weirdly that, too, averages out to one every 30 minutes. The propensity for Thais to drink and drive is as scary as it is consistent.
What can be done? Here in Thailand we think up really fun ways to tackle problems.
The Land Transport Department, for example, is thinking of allowing free travel on buses and trains for "poor people". They have yet to ascertain how to separate this group from the rest of us for ticketing purposes; I suspect someone will propose branding or a tattoo. Recently the Tourism Minister wanted all tourists on Koh Tao to wear wristbands, because that would curtail the practice of influential locals butchering foreign visitors.
And alcohol?
There is a Public Health Ministry department known as the Alcohol Control Committee Office. It is run by a vociferous and energetic doctor by the name of Smarn Footrakul.
You may not have heard of Dr Smarn, but you have certainly felt his presence if you ever tried purchasing alcohol between the hours of 2pm and 5pm. He thought up that rule as a way of curtailing the road toll. You see the less time you can buy alcohol means the less chance you will die on the roads. I know, I know … and wristbands will stop murder.
Dr Smarn also proposed, and got passed, banning alcohol sales on major Buddhist holy days, because "Don't drink alcohol" is one of the five Buddhist precepts. That to me is a half-measure; if you're a Buddhist country, why even sell alcohol in the first place?
Have these bans contributed to lowering the death toll?
Well, no. Actually, since they have been enforced, the death toll in this country has increased. In 2010, 347 people were killed on the Seven Days of Death. It's now up to 365. Logically, we should be allowing alcohol to be served 24 hours a day to reduce the road toll.
Two weeks ago Dr Smarn presented his latest ideas; one of them caused a few jaws to drop, not to mention vodka shot glasses clattering to the floor.
The proposal was to ban alcohol sales on Dec 31 and Jan 1, along with April 12-14, because these are the times when Thais die the most.
When I heard this news, my first reaction (if you don't count reaching for the Absolut) was to wonder just how many other countries have such a ban.
I'm not talking about nations that forbid alcohol outright, just those that make it illegal on cherry-picked days of the year that are deemed to be celebratory. The number is astounding, not to mention symmetrical — zero.
We would have been the first country in the world to be able to legally buy a beer on Dec 30, but then get arrested for buying that same beer on Dec 31. That's an interesting yardstick as to exactly where this suggestion stands on the Ludicrous Meter, a point made by the Thai Medical Association this week, which came out against the idea too.
But this is not a column to reveal the unsavoury drinking habits of its scribe; God knows that column was about five years ago. Instead, it is a concerned inquiry as to why Thais are intent on pulling that final coffin nail out of the sky. Tourism accounts for 10% of Thailand's gross domestic product. A total of 26 million tourists visited last year.
What if the government had accepted and implemented Dr Smarn's ban? Not only would it be the first time a country had enacted such a law, but it would be the first time tumbleweeds blew down Silom Road during peak hour.
Foreign tourists choose to come to Thailand. They don't just automatically show up regardless. We've had a coup, a brutal double-murder, and now we want to ban alcohol?
Does Thailand realise what is happening over in its traditional rival's neck of the woods? Myanmar is opening up. There are pristine beaches and islands just waiting to be discovered.
These are places devoid of tailor shop touts and bar beers and locals who will love you for eternity provided you purchase a television set for her ailing mother. Worse, Myanmar is a country where one can purchase a beer between the hours of 2pm and 5pm, as well as on Buddhist public holidays. It even has a lower road toll!
That is paradise for any backpacker or five-star hotel tourist.
Were foreign tourists in the government's mind when it rejected the bill last Tuesday?
Officially no. The government "doesn't want to deprive the population of happiness during the holiday break". Instead it will embark on a "No More Than One Glass Of Alcohol" campaign, which I suspect will go down the same way a blanket ban on eating som tam might.
If Dr Smarn wants to reduce the death toll, as I do, then there is only one thing the two of us must do.
We have to get on our knees and crawl over to the police department where we must plead, with all the deference we can muster, for police to enforce the law.
This is not about curtailing alcohol. It's about curtailing behaviour.
I know this. I grew up in a society that put Thailand to shame when it came to obnoxious, loud-mouthed alcoholics who spent all night at the pub then drove home. The road toll in Australia used to be shocking until around the early 1980s when the country got tough on drink-drivers.
The only way to stop us was to scare us, because if we got caught at a roadside breathalyser, we couldn't get off with a quiet 100 baht note slipped under the driver's licence. We lost our licences, sometimes for life, and some of us risked going to jail.
It's time for Thailand to do that as well, for what is the alternative? As long as we bribe the cops and have no fear of driving home drunk, then Thais will remain slaughtered at a rate of one every 30 minutes.
That in itself is a sobering thought requiring no enforced ban, regardless of date. Thailand may have dodged a bullet, but the nail still hovers in the clouds. n
