In a positive start to the New Year, Goa Police in a drive against drunken driving penalised 311 revelers who were found to be intoxicated when driving on New Year’s Eve. Let us not even begin to try to guess how many others escaped detection. Given the number of vehicles on the road that night, the figure could well be in the thousands. Compare though the statistics of Goa to New Delhi where on the same evening the police caught 509 drunk drivers, actually far less than on the same day the previous year when 765 persons had been issued challans for the same reason.
In Goa, this was one special drive, and the police had warned they would be on the lookout for drunk drivers, with a circular issued to all police stations in charges to ensure effective prosecution of drunken drivers apart from traffic regulation. Police Inspectors in charge of police stations were equipped with breathalyzers to ensure that the celebrations to ring in the New Year were peaceful. And peaceful they did be, with no major fatal accident reported in the State. The police force in Goa is armed with alcometers and drunken driving, however, is not restricted to New Year’s Eve, so why should the drives be?
There have occurred in the past a number of fatal accidents due to the person behind the wheel being drunk, and such drives by the police should be held more often to ensure that drivers fear the possibility of getting caught and being prosecuted, with the punishment even being imprisonment. That is not to say that the authorities are not doing their job. As per available statistics, 5785 drunken drivers were booked in 2018 of which around 3,161 violators were convicted. Some were let off with a fine while others were sentenced till the rising of the court and even imprisoned serving a sentence ranging from one day to 10 days. The police are scrutinising the cases booked on New Year’s Eve to decide on those that can be recommended for a spell in jail.
Drunk driving is quite common in Goa, as can be seen by the statistics. If there were some 5785 cases booked, it works out to almost 16 instances of drunken drivers being caught per day in the State. The police have clamped down on it, but it does not appear to have been very effective as the number of cases being booked increases. Strict action against repeat offenders and heightened police enforcement are the only manner by which drunken driving can actually be curbed. Studies in the United States of America have shown that the increased risk of arrest can lead to a very significant reduction in the number of cases of drunk driving. The drivers booked too should realise that getting fined is preferable to getting into an accident.
One worrying factor, in Goa as well as in New Delhi, is that most of those caught driving when drunk were youngsters. That is quite a sobering piece of information, and one that needs to be tackled so as to reduce drinking among youth. It has to be impressed upon the youth, that driving under the influence of alcohol not only endangers themselves, but also others on the road. It is also imperative that the vigilance by the police at spots frequented by the youth in increased, so that this turns into a deterrent to the youth who would otherwise drink and then drive. It is time now for the police to seriously being implementing at measures of how to reduce the number of cases of drinking while under the influence of alcohol.
