OPINION

Lighting the way

The sad reality of all the road carnage in Thailand is that, even with strict traffic law enforcement and widespread public relations and education programmes, it will take at least a generation to change the driving habits of the current population.

Therefore, the government should look for some simple and inexpensive measures to try and reduce traffic accident rates in the meantime.

One such measure would be to adopt the requirement that all transport vehicles: buses, trucks, minivans, etc, use their headlights during the day time. This increases the vehicles' visibility at greater distances, especially during the dusk hours of the day.

Most Western and developed Asian countries have had this requirement for decades. Many studies have show this simple change has lead to a measurable reduction in accidents, especially on undivided roads and during over-taking situations.

Re: "Electronic bracelets to be used on drink-drivers next year", (BP, Dec 25).

Don't waste any more money on drink-drivers. Put them in jail immediately and revoke driving licences for life are the effective way to deal with drink-driving. The budget for such gadgets should be used instead for building special detention cells for them.

As a neutral observer and historian, I cannot help but point out another absurdity regarding the always absurd Middle East issue: On the one hand, it was President Trump who announced the American recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital, triggering impotent Islamic fury, but for some reason it is that Israel gets all the blame for this. This is proven by the vicious riots in the West Bank and Gaza targeting Israel as well as by the world media which somehow managed to blame Israel for its capital being recognised. It will surprise no one, as being anti-Israel is the trendy thing to do, but the irony in the newly created situation cannot be ignored.

In this case, Israel has not even done anything, other than cast its vote at the UN and allow its ambassador to make another speech, but still the world is up in arms ... against Mr Trump as well, but mainly Israel. One cannot in all fairness single out the Israelis for their pervasive siege mentality and their extreme right-wing government's intransigence. With Guatemala on course to move its embassy to Jerusalem, it seems that Mr Trump will not be alone after all.

In his Dec 25 letter, "Ethical dilemmas", Michael Setter aptly demonstrates every Republican's "But what about" mentality. He denies any ethical problem with Donald Trump while pointing the finger at past democratic leaders who have allegedly done wrong.

Mr Setter, two wrongs don't make a right and obfuscation and pointing fingers falls way short of validating your opinion on the issues.

You seem to have your head firmly in the sand with regard to Mr Trump. I could reel off a rather lengthy list of Mr Trump's sins and transgressions over the course of barely a year in office, but until you come up for air, I won't bother.

Suffice it for me to weigh in on a few points: There are Americans that absolutely do care deeply about the UN.

Mr Trump doesn't represent all Americans, he doesn't even represent most of them as exemplified by his published Gallup Poll approval ratings.

And Mr Nagi didn't commit any "error", he merely expressed an opinion, as all writers to PostBag do unless they cite sources.

It was an outrage to read how a staff member at Pattaya Zoo was poking a tiger to make it roar while it posed for pictures with stupid tourists (BP, Dec 22). Only after a tremendous amount of negative publicity did the management take action against that man.

Whether we're talking about elephant shows, orangutan boxing or Pattaya Zoo, the tourists who go to those places are a disgrace and the root cause of why these animals are being abused.