Caught drunk? Cops to counsel you

Bengaluru: The next time you are caught driving in an inebriated state, you will be made to go through an hour-long counseling programme. Offenders like you will be shown movies, documentaries and clippings of the ill-effects of drunken driving, in a bid to reduce the increasing number of accidents taking place during the night hours.

Dismayed by the fact that despite the enhanced enforcement, the number of cases of  drunk driving are not coming down, the cops have resorted to this step. In the last seven months, the police have registered about 29,000 cases of drunken driving and on an average about 50,000 cases of drunken driving are booked in city annually.

“We are noticing that in recent months there is an increase in the number of accidents, especially at night. Most of these cases have involved drunk drivers. So it’s evident that the police efforts in stopping the offences by sending the offenders to the courts, are not yielding positive results. Besides managing the traffic on the roads, the police are also responsible for the safety of the commuters. Which is why we have now designed a new programme to educate drunk driving offenders,” explained Mr M A Saleem, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic).

“We have a large collection of movies from across the world, which talk about safe driving and the effects of drunken driving -- with real footage and expert opinions. Often  the offenders claim that they do not remember misbehaving with the cops the previous night, so how can one let them drive, risking the lives of others on the road? Now we have decided to run them through an hour-long educational counseling on safe driving on the day they come to police stations to collect their vehicle and documents,” Mr Saleem explained.

Mr Saleem also added that the Traffic police are fast shifting towards “contact-free” enforcement, where no policeman will be involved when the offenders receive the challan at their doorsteps.

“The project is ongoing but in the coming months we shall increase the contact-free enforcement in city. Only for violations such as drunk driving will the police be interacting with the violators and other commuters. At many divisions we have also started conducted drunk driving checks during weekdays so that commuters start making it a habit to drive without consuming alcohol right through the week,” the officer concluded.