Number of women booked for drunk driving rises in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: Indicating a shift in the city’s lifestyle trends, the number of women drunk drivers is on the rise, with most of the offenders being educated, working professionals. While 17 women were caught by traffic cops in 2014 for driving in an inebriated condition, till September-end this year, 22 women were booked for driving four-wheelers when drunk.

On January 7, Jubilee Hills traffic cops booked 28-year-old Swarupa (name changed), a management post-graduate working as a talent acquisition member at a private firm in the city near Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. When subjected to the breathalyser test, her Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) touched 131 mg/100 ml.

Police book drivers under section 185 of the MV Act for drunken driving if the BAC is more than 30 mg100 ml. She was counselled by the traffic cops at Goshamahal Traffic Training Institute (TTI) and was imposed Rs 2,000 penalty when produced before court. A total of 11,384 people have been booked so far this year for driving under the influence of alcohol.

A quick analysis of the data related to woman drunk driving offenders indicates that all of them are from upper middle class or rich backgrounds and live in the surrounding areas of Banjara Hills, Gachibowli and Secunderabad. All the women caught by traffic cops were driving four-wheelers and a majority of them were nabbed by Jubilee Hills and Banjara Hills traffic cops. The list of women booked for drunken driving comprises doctors, software engineers, businesswomen and even housewives.

As per the traffic police data, the youngest woman offender is a 21-year-old BPO employee and the oldest offender is a 35-year-old housewife from Yellareddyguda in Punjagutta.
Till September 31, traffic police booked 11,384 drunken driving cases and 1,748 offenders were given imprisonment. But so far, none of the women offenders have been given imprisonment.

 

SOURCE: PTI