Drunken driving peaks this New Year in Hyderabad

Is the only way to celebrate and welcome the New year by drinking alcohol? Looks like it is the only way for many.

The traffic police in Hyderabad and Cyberabad and other teams booked more than 1,000 drivers on New year’s night for drunken driving and many had high alcohol levels as revealed in the breath analyser test. Last year 1,073 were booked for the same offence and this year increase shows that all the campaigns against drunk driving has fallen on deaf years.

Many SHE teams were also on high alert in Hyderabad to prevent any untoward incidents. Numerous check points sprung up at crucial junctions and many were booked. Police also closed many flyovers as a precautionary move on New year’s eve. Another fact that came out in the exercise was that majority of the offenders were four-wheel drivers.

A similar trend is seen in most of our major cities this time of the year. However cities like Mumbai have showed a marginal decline in drunk drivers on New year’s eve.

Stricter rules against drunk driving

“Over 100 teams, both static and mobile, were deployed across the city. There were also decoy teams on the roads to catch road rule violators. All enforcement works were recorded using cameras for the purpose of evidence,” said Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Jitender.

Stricter rule implementation is now the norm in Hyderabad for drunk driving. The punishment for drunk driving is fine to imprisonment. All those with BAC (Blood Alcohol Level) level more than 30 mg will be booked. In Hyderabad alone nearly 1000 drivers were booked, followed by Cyberabad.

The lack of cab service due to the ongoing strike by cab drivers of Ola, Uber etc in Hyderabad has also multiplied the transport problems for many.