BANGKOK // Drink drivers in Thailand will be sentenced to community service in morgues, authorities said on Tuesday, stepping up efforts to combat the country’s appalling traffic safety record.
Thailand’s military rulers hopes the morbid rehabilitation plan will ram home the message that drink driving kills and help to cut traffic-related deaths in a country with the world’s second most dangerous roads.
Nontajit Netpukkana, a senior official at the department of probation, said Thailand’s cabinet had approved their morgue proposal.
“We originally had community services at hospital wards [for offenders],” he said on Tuesday.
“But we think the intensity that comes from working in a morgue will help give those doing community service a clearer picture of what happens after accidents caused by drink driving,” he said.
Thailand has the second most dangerous roads in the world in terms of per capita deaths and the World Health Organisation estimates about 24,000 people die each year in Thai road traffic accidents.
Only Libya records a greater number of fatalities per capita.
* Agence France-Presse
