Delhi model to curb drunk driving

Tuesday, June 04, 2011

If all goes according to plan, drunk drivers can land in jail in the coming months. This may become possible as the Chandigarh police has decided to adopt the Delhi Traffic Police model against drunk driving, through which the drivers found guilty of this offence can be imprisoned up to six months.

The police believe that drunk driving is one of the major causes of fatal accidents taking place in the city.

"We have decided to adopt the Delhi Traffic Police model to curb the menace of drunk driving in the city," Inspector General of Police Pradeep Kumar Srivastava said at a joint press conference, also addressed by Delhi Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Satyendra Garg.

Srivastava said the UT police has decided to approach judicial officers in Chandigarh on the issue so as to make them aware about the Delhi model where the accident rate due to tough measures—where the offenders are put behind bars—had shown encouraging results.

"We have plans to go hammer and tongs against menace of drunk driving in the city and in near future we will try to implement the Delhi model," Srivastava said.

Garg, who before addressing the press conference, chaired a meeting with the officials of UT police to make them aware about the legal course against drunk driving, said a message had gone in Delhi among the people that 'one can't go away with the drunk driving'.

"It took lot of time to ensure that the drunk drivers are punished. The Section 185 of MV Act 1988, specially deals with inebriated drivers and all those found guilty used to pay the fine and beyond it they were not punished. They would apologise before the court. But there was a provision for imprisonment for this offence, but it was never enforced at any place. In 2010, we took the issue with the judicial officers in Delhi and after many meetings and explaining that the law needed to be tough and the offenders need to be arrested as the drunk driving was the root cause of the fatal accidents, they too decided to be strict," Garg said.

"After 2010, we imprisoned hundreds of offenders."

Delhi's joint commissioner of police said they have been able to bring down the accident rate after initiating tough action against the drunk drivers.

"At a time when accidents are increasing everywhere, we in Delhi were able to bring down the accidents by 10 per cent in 2010 and in first five months (of this year), the accidents have been brought down to 12 per cent ," he said, adding that after the conviction, the driving licences of the offenders were also suspended by the authorities.

Original news source http://www.indianexpress.com/news/delhi-model-to-curb-drunk-driving/800260/0