Sunil Haleangady
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SP)

Mangaluru, Jul 17: The police department has decided to act tough against drivers who get drunk at night and drive vehicles inconsistently, posing risks to other road users. The Suratkal traffic police who conducted this operation at Haleangady on Wednesday July 15 night registered 60 cases in three hours and collected fine of about Rs 12,000. These also included violation of seat belt rule.

Police inspector, Manjunath, who has been trying hard to improve the conditions within the jurisdiction of this traffic police station, has been leading this drive from the front. He draws able support from police sub-inspectors, Gopalakrishna Bhat and Purushotham in this endeavour.

The sight of policemen stopping vehicles at midnight seemed to have caught drunk drivers unawares. A number of people, who were driving vehicles in drunken state with loud music blaring from their vehicles, without following traffic rules at night too were fined. Breath analyzers were used to prove intoxication levels of those who tried to argue that they were not drunk. The action of police in trying to contain drunk driving came in for lavish praise from locals. Many of the offenders were truck drivers.

The police expressed surprise about so many cases having been booked in a matter of three hours, and such a huge fine having been collected during this drive. There were cases in which vehicles were borrowed from others just to visit far off places to consume liquor and get a 'kick' out of it. People feel that accidents which occur at night might come down drastically if police conduct such operations at least once a week in this region.