- 555 cases booked from February 2022
- With holidays, April saw 312 offences
Mysore/Mysuru: Realising that random drunken driving checks are yielding no results, the City Police have intensified the checks every day where drivers are stopped and asked to take breath alcohol tests across the city.
After a gap of two years, the Police resumed drunken driving checks on all major roads from February this year. However, these checks were random and from February till Apr. 29,
555 cases were booked. Despite this, people continue to drive vehicles under the influence of alcohol leading to accidents, endangering other people’s lives resulting in loss of lives and limbs.
“Now, teams have been conducting enforcement drives at various places in the city, flagging down drivers and asking them to blow air into a ‘breathalyser’ which determines the level of alcohol in one’s blood. The tests were stopped in March 2020 after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in order to avoid the risk of transmission of the virus. We have decided to intensify the checks,” City Police Commissioner Dr. Chandragupta told Star of Mysore.
Over 20 breathalysers (alcometres) have been provided to Mysuru and they have been distributed among Devaraja, Krishnaraja, V.V. Puram, Narasimharaja and Siddharthanagar traffic divisions. “April alone saw 312 cases as there were a series of holidays and people usually consume alcohol a day before the holiday. Our objection is to them driving under the influence of alcohol. Let them not drive or maybe they can drink at home,” the Commissioner said.
ACP (Traffic) S.E. Gangadharaswamy and his team of Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors have set up barricades on all the main roads, ring road, the connecting roads to Mysuru and also the District, State and National Highways connecting Mysuru. This checking primarily begins at 10 pm and goes on till midnight.
“Taking advantage of the suspension of breathalyser tests, many motorists in the city limits began driving after downing one too many pegs. There were several accidents reported due to drunken driving where motorists were ramming into road dividers, medians, electric poles or trees,” City Top Cop Dr. Chandragupta added.
Drunk driving is an offence punishable by imprisonment of up to six months and a minimum fine of Rs. 10,000. Not every vehicle on the road is checked. “We only check those which we find are being driven in a suspicious manner,” ACP (Traffic) Gangadharaswamy said.
As soon as the offender is caught consuming liquor in excess, a printout of the offence is given to them and a copy is sent to the RTO for the suspension of licence. In cases of drunk driving, the offender has to pay a fine in the Court of law along with other offences in case there are violations in driving licence, lack of documents, etc.
This post was published on April 30, 2022 6:45 pm