A loud crash woke up Sok Pao and her family several months ago, and since then the 32-year-old has been afraid of the large cars with flashing lights that hurtle down her street after dark.
“My brother-in law looked and saw a car had driven into one of the pillars of our house,” said Sok Pao, who runs a general store in Chey Chumneah commune, Daun Penh district. “The driver was extremely drunk. It was lucky for my family the car only crashed into the pillar and not right into the house.”
Other Phnom Penh residents also expressed concern recently about the number of drunken drivers on the streets.
“I am scared because I see many drunk drivers speeding on the roads. They drive to the left and right: They cannot control the car,” said Do Sopriya, a 24-year-old student.
With more and more people driving cars—the municipality’s transportation department reported 22,000 newly registered automobiles in the last four years—and a police force that faces difficulties catching those drivers with alcohol in their system, drunken driving has the potential to become a serious and dangerous problem, Phnom Penh traffic police said last week.
Police recorded 662 traffic accidents in 2002; an increase on the previous year’s figure of 643. Kim Yidet, director of the municipal traffic police, said drivers under the influence of alcohol were behind the majority of these crashes.
Traffic police plan to counter the trend by creating a special force to chase down vehicles driving at high speed. Drunken drivers will be fined between 500 riel and 40,000 riel, but if their driving is thought to have caused a fatality, they will be tried in court, Kim Yidet explained.
Despite these efforts, until traffic police get equipment to test the breath of drivers and measure the quantity of alcohol they have drunk, identifying offenders will be difficult, Kim Yidet said.
“At the moment, police have to judge drunk drivers by smelling their breath,” he added.
Sok Pao, for one, said she has never heard of a drunken driver who has been punished by law.
That is set to change, according to Kim Yidet: “Drunk drivers will be punished strongly once we have a proper law. A new traffic law was sent to the Assembly in 2001, but we are still waiting for it to be passed,” he said.
Do Sopriya recently found out for himself how difficult driving when drunk can be.
“I drove my friends back from a party when I was drunk,” he said. “My eyes were heavy and I drove without confidence. I thought I would have an accident, but everything was normal. I was lucky.”
Chhay Samoeun, a driving instructor at Mittapheap Driving School, considers it the responsibility of driving teachers to educate students on the dangers of drunken driving.
“It’s very important for all drivers to avoid alcohol, because if you drink and drive you will be punished by having an accident,” Chhay Samoeun said.
(Additional reporting by Flora Stubbs)
