Japanese is a complex language, with a lot of information that's not openly stated since Japanese people are usually good at communicating things indirectly. The other day my family went out for miso ramen and I ordered a beer, since that restaurant had Yebisu, my favorite brand. The serving girl who was taking our order asked, "How many glasses should I bring with the beer?" and since I was going to drink and let my wife drive home, I told her to just bring one. A minute later I realized she hadn't asked about how many glasses we wanted at all: instead she was gently reminding us to avoid drinking and driving, just in case I'd planned on having my beer then driving home myself. The new policy of restaurants taking a more proactive approach to customers ordering alcohol without a designated driver started a few years ago, with new policies put in place by the National Police Force, including a new rule that a passenger who lets another person drive drunk or the person that served the alcohol can be charged with a crime. The new policy has born fruit, with the announcement that deaths from traffic accidents numbered just 5155 in 2008, the eighth year of decline and a huge improvement over 1970, when the number of traffic deaths was more than 16,000.
New social pressures against drinking and driving are having a positive effect on the accident rate.
3 comments:
I tended bar for a friend's wedding. I did not need to, but I decided to get a bar tending permit in addition to making sure I had a permit for the occasion.
The lady who gave the class didn't think much of the designated driver program. It's a start, but she had stats showing more drunk people died not driving than driving. And some people who haven't had anything to drink die because of drunks not behind the wheel.
Example, she lost a friend who had not been drinking to a hotel fire caused by two people who had been drinking. Drunk people fall down stairs and break their necks, drunk people fall in the water and drown, drunk people set themselves on fire.
The message is, "I don't care if you are driving or not, if you're drunk I have to cut you off."
I remember going to Canada in 1999 and being taught the designated driver policy, although when I was back in 2006 the waitress didn't seem to mind that everyone on the table was drinking (and that despite I was 23 I looked pretty much underage). In Brazil they sort of started a dry law that worked for a couple of months. Drivers had to test for alcohol levels if stopped by the police and they got arrested if their levels were high, but I heard since it's not on the media constantly anymore things are a littler loose again.
Yes, it's a bad situation all around. Maybe one small solution is to get away from the idea of drinking at home alone. I mean, if everyone comes to my house for a party then crashes there if needed (like we used to do in college), there will be no drinking and driving. Another suggestion: adopt the Japanese 'daiko' (taxi + spare driver) to get people home safely.
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