I stayed up very late last night. I was watching a video clip which showed discussions at a committee in the congress held in the daytime yesterday. The Ministry of Justice would enact a law to punish severer to those who give rise to traffic accidents. The authority told they would take the symptoms as the important thing, but not the diagnoses themselves. But it is related with the punishment by criminal law, so that the factors composing the crime should be clearly defined, that is, they would regard each illness as the factor.
A couple of witnesses, who represent certain academic societies related with this matter, have told clearly against the authority in this way.
There is no evidence that those with epilepsy or psychiatric illnesses cause more traffic accidents than the other normal population. Nevertheless, millions of people will be badly affected by this law.
The article that defines those with illnesses being excluded from application of this law actually requires that a ceratin driver is illness free. It contradicts itself.
There are already prejudice worsened against those with the illnesses in the society. It is clearly related with the move toward this law. If the psychiatric illnesses should be related with any traffic accident, the relationship is the same as that in the other kinds of illnesses.
It seems that the authority has hastened to enact this law by "the public opinion" . There have been a few serious traffic accident cases reported by the mass media. They attracted public attention because they had been caused by alcoholics or an epilepsy patient without medication. They should have listened to what the professional doctors would comment on that before they proposed the draft.
They should withdraw the draft and go on discussing how to prevent such accidents. Punishment won't solve the problem.
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