Hyderabad: The Supreme Court committee on road safety in its guidelines unequivocally states that the police should seek imprisonment and suspend the licence of drivers in cases of drunk driving.
However, Road Transport Authority and city police have been slow to implement the guidelines with only 194 licences of drunk drivers suspended this year. That is not even five per cent of total drunk driving cases booked by police in 2016.
In the recent case in which little Sanjana and her mother were injured at Peddamberpet, the driver, B.N. Venkat Ramana, can still drive vehicles; he is out on bail and his driving licence is neither cancelled nor suspended.
There are several drunk drivers, including repeat offenders, out there driving with no remorse after they were arrested.
RTA officials say that they suspend the licence based on proposals sent by traffic police or law and order police.
“So far, we have not got any proposal from police in the road accident involving Sanjana. When police sends a list of offenders, we review it and cancel the licence. That is standard practice,” said T. Raghunath, joint commissioner (Hyderabad), RTA.
RTA officials say that the police don’t send proposals on every offender.
Hyderabad traffic police officials say that they only send the proposal on repeat offenders.
Road-safety experts say that mere challan or a police counseling does not work as a deterrent for the drunk drivers. They say that the drunk driver should not be allowed to drive for a period of time.
