Drunken driving Think before you drink

Writer Kona Venkat’s punch lines in Tollywood movies created turbulence among the masses and his dialogues struck the right chords with the audiences. But he was in the news last Friday after he was booked for drunken driving. His Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) was found to be 40 mg per 100 ml. A case of drunken driving was booked against Venkat and his vehicle was seized. This is one such incident of the 400 drunken driving cases registered last week.

Alcohol affects the central nervous system of a person. Even at BAC of 0.05 percent, the sense of judgement is impaired and the ability to control steering is affected. It is true that abuse of alcohol results in increased incidence of traumatic vehicular injuries and deaths. Maintaining presence of mind while driving is very important and many decisions are taken in a split second. A driver who is drunk cannot perform these tasks and would endanger traffic safety.

Additional DCP, Hyderabad Traffic Circle II, Satyanarayana reveals that the city traffic police is working under the guidance of Amit Garg, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) and is expanding check post zones in every nook and corner. He added that the police had arranged for Metropolitan Legal Awarness Programme for drunken driving and general violators. "We got a good response from the programme and the violators promised not to commit the offence again”, DCP (Traffic) explained. According to a release, from January 1 to August 24 this year, a total of 8,674 cases have been registered and total imprisonments are 765 as on date.

Satyanaryana added that traffic cops are checking women for drunken driving but its enforcement is not in full steam due to dearth of women constables. “Women sometime object to a BAC test, but we are trying to deploy women constables at the location,” clears Satyanarayana.

“We try to drop drunk customers and are also working on a tie-up with a private company who can provide drivers on service," says a vice president of a nightclub in Begumpet. A manager of a city bar in Banjara Hills says, “We follow the cops' guidelines and we even oblige when we are asked to close before the deadline. We have put up posters all over our clubs to create awareness on the dangers of drunken driving.” The permissible limit for the amount of alcohol content in the body as prescribed under the Motor Vehicle Act, should be within 30 mg per 100 ml.