Bengaluru: 1,169 drunk drivers booked in 3 hours

BENGALURU: In its biggest ever crackdown against drunk driving, city traffic police booked 1,169 cases against inebriated drivers in three hours flat on Saturday. The drive began at 11pm and went on till 2am.
This is the highest number of drunk driving cases booked in a single night. On December 31, 2018, 667 cases had been booked, while on December 31, 2017, over 400 cases were booked.
While checks are usually conducted at over 100 to 150 checkpoints in the city, on Saturday night, checks were conducted at 196 checkpoints. On Ballari Road alone, more than 90 cases were registered, said traffic police. They pointed out that special drives against drink driving are conducted across all 44 traffic police station limits on every Saturday.
The drive was, however, “intensified” on July 27 by deploying more policemen on the road, said a senior traffic police official. The maximum number of cases were booked in the west zone (519), followed by east (400).
Additional commissioner of police (traffic) P Harishekaran, who personally supervised the drive on the roads, said over 3,000 traffic police personnel, including four inspectors, seven ACPs and DCPs from every division, were deployed across important junctions and on the outskirts.
In addition to drink driving, we also carried out checks on all autorickshaws and cases were also booked against 63 autos without display cards.
The ACP pointed out that such intensified, massive drink driving checks will continue to be organised in the city on a fortnightly basis. “The primary objective of the drive was preventing fatal accidents, while this will also have a collaborative impact on preventing crime in the city,” he added.
Till May, traffic police have booked more than 15,895 cases of drink driving this year.