The strict enforcement of drink driving by the city police has practically become a ‘cat-and-mouse’ game between police and tipsy drivers.
While the police are finding new ways to enforce the law, the tipsy drivers are always on the look out to evade the check.
And the drivers have gone hi-tech by creating a WhatsApp group to forewarn the other brethren.
With the police and RTA increasing the number of enforcement teams and stationing them at all key locations, the WhatsApp group is created to warn everybody about the presence of the police at different locations.
All that one has to do is to become a part of that group.
According to a senior police officer, the WhatsApp group is posing a challenge for the enforcement teams. The moment one spots a police team, a message is sent and the others divert their route to evade checks.
For example if a team is spotted near Siripuram, a message is sent, and the tipsy drivers, instead of using the Siripuram Road divert to Daspalla hill and take the Jail Road to avoid the checking team, said the officer.
It began with one WhatsApp group, now there are several spreading across the city from MVP Colony to Gajuwaka and from Old Town area to Madhurawada.
According to ACP (Traffic) Kinjarapu Prabhakar, earlier the checks were conducted on weekends, but now they are done every day and there are about 20 teams, spread across the city.
“But the moment a message is sent by one tipsy driver, it goes viral and many try to change the route,” he said.
Drink driving cases are on the rise in the city. In 2016, the total number of cases registered was 11,916 and in 2017 it has gone up to 18,906.
Smart policing
To counter the smart move of the drunk drivers, the police also have become smarter. They are now not sticking to one place and have gone mobile to introduce the element of surprise.
“We cannot allow, the drink driving and the idea is to reduce the rate of accidents and bring in some discipline. If they have a way out, we have 10 to surprise them,” said Mr. Prabhakar.
Sumit Bhattacharjee
