Rehab for 294 drunk driving offenders

Of the 294 cases, many belonged to the lower income class and did not have a designated driver to drive them back

TSS Siddharth

To put an end to drunken driving and further curb the menace of increasing death-toll, the traffic authorities setup an enforcement drive on 23 and 24 August. In the course of this drive, there were a total of 294 cases that were booked for drunken driving. The third metropolitan magistrate, B Chengalaraya Nayudu, convicted 31 people out of which one person was sentenced to imprisonment for five days and 30 others for a period of three days. Meanwhile, the fourth metropolitan magistrate, Shiva Shanker Prasad, convicted a total of 32 people and ordered one person to be remanded for a day. The Hyderabad Traffic Police also arranged for a Metropolitan Legal Awareness Programme for people caught driving under the influence of alcohol. As a penalty, all the people who were booked for the offence were asked to pay a fine of Rs 2100 and all the detainees were summoned to the Traffic Training Institutes at Goshamahal and Begumpet.

Among all the 294 vehicles that were booked, there were 221 two wheelers, 17 three wheelers, 53 four wheelers and three other vehicles.

As part of the action taken by the traffic authorities, the detainees were made to attend counselling sessions and were also taught the basics of road etiquette on a track at the institutes that were specially made for people caught for drunken driving. Syed Hamed Ullah, Head Constable, Traffic Training Institute, Begumpet conducts counselling sessions for offenders found driving under the influence for alcohol. The constable says, “We take the offenders in batches, inside the counselling hall and make them watch short films with a motivational message. We try to teach them the importance of life and convey that drinking is not only harming their health but driving under the influence of alcohol is endangering the life of innocent pedestrians and passersby on the roads.”

A shocking discovery that came to light, during the session was that most of the offenders belonged to the lower income families and some were even uneducated. The counsellor said, “The upper middle class and middle class people are smart enough to keep one person sober who will be able to drive them back to their respective destinations, but the people from lower income families do not have such a thought of approach.” Syed Hamed Ullah, is proud to say that he has not seen any repeat offenders till date. Of the 294 cases that were booked last weekend, most of offenders belonged to the age group of 20-25. Syed says, “0.30% is the permissible Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) while driving. But we found a few cases with results that went up to 1.00.”

Apart from counselling, the offenders are also made to establish their driving skills on a test track. On the test track they are given a bicycle and are asked to navigate through the track without committing any form of traffic violation.