Police patrol: Bias in drunken driving checks?

The city traffic police deny motorists’ claims of leniency towards tourist cab drivers ferrying night-shift employees; all subjected to breathalyser tests, they say

The next time you go back home in a cab from office, after night shift, chances are the police will ask your driver to take a breathalyser test.

A lot of motorists have been complaining that police officers never stop cab drivers ferrying office-goers, mostly from the information technology sector, during routine night-time vehicle checks.

K. Sakthi, who works in a BPO firm in Thoraipakkam, says normally the police do not check vehicles carrying groups of office-goers late in the night.

However, a senior officer of the city traffic police denies there is any bias in night-time breathalyser tests. Producing data from the daily status report of one random day, when 130 motorists were given challan for drunken driving, the officer says 65 tourist taxis drivers were asked to take the test and 15 of them fined for drunken driving.