Taipei  - A Taiwan man who had staggered drunkenly into the road was killed by a car after 81 vehicles passed by without stopping to help him off the road, the Apple Daily reported Sunday.

Lien Hong-hsin, 51, a retired man, got drunk while playing mahjong at a friend's home in Taipei Saturday evening, the newspaper reported.

He took a taxi home but, as he was drunk, he did not enter his home but staggered in confusion to the middle of the road to hail a taxi "to go home."

According to footage from a security camera overlooking the site, 81 vehicles - including cars, buses and motorbikes - swerved to avoid Lien, but no driver stopped to help him to the roadside or alert the police.

For 24 minutes, Lien staggered in the middle of the road, squatted down, collapsed a few times and pulled himself up.

Finally, Lien fell down again and was run over and killed by a car.

The newspaper chided the passers-by for ignoring Lien's plight.

"He had 81 chances not to be killed, but everyone was indifferent, he lost his life," the newspaper wrote in a front-page story under the headline: "Man killed by car because society is too cold."

Yang Tsung-tsai, a psychiatrist at the Cardinal Tien Hospital, said that people don't want to help drunk people for fear of getting themselves into trouble.

"Even so, they can call the police hotline 110, so drunk people won't get hurt or killed," the Apple Daily quoted him as saying.  (dpa)