Beware sleeping drunks

Not to long ago National Geographic had a one page article on unique warning and other signs from around the world. My favorite, a warning of deep crocodile-infested waters, pictured a wheelchair speeding down a ramp. Another, aimed at teaching rural residents the correct way of using a toilet, had a picture of a person squatting on top of a toilet seat with the universal diagonal red line across the sign.

If I were asked to design a unique roadside warning sign for Pohnpei, it would show a man laying in the road asleep (as indicated by those little z’s used in cartoons to depict a sleeping person) with a half empty botttle of booze at his side. As with most developing countries where the traditional lifestyle is evaporating and many men are unemployed, alcohol is a problem.

I can understand the alcoholism. It’s the falling asleep drunk in the middle of the road that confuses me. I can’t imagine being so drunk that I wouldn’t first move to the side of the road before laying down for my night’s sleep. But it’s true…
Driving at night, especially a weekend night, one must be on the lookout for people asleep in the road. One friend reported that on two occasions, as he turned from the main road onto his street he has had to stop and wake someone up. On a cloudy night a few weeks ago, while driving home on a rural road a different friend didn’t notice a sleeping drunk until it was too late.

If the story is true what happened afterward is even more amazing then a drunk guy lying down in the street. According to the driver, after running the man over, he stopp the car and knocked on a neighbor’s house. The neighbors were aware that the guy was asleep in the road but hadn’t bothered to move him. The police were summoned and my friend then had to convince them that they should take the run-over drunk to the hospital to be checked out. Fortunately, his injuries were not life threatening and the man survived.