New Delhi: The Delhi Police fined 26 people for drunk driving, 174 for dangerous driving, and 706 for unauthorised parking as it reported 1,336 traffic violations across the city amid muted New Year celebrations because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Police also issued 144 challans for mask and social distancing violations from 4pm on December 31, 2019 to 4pm on the New Year day. So far, 5,13,529 people have been issued challans for not wearing mask while 38,256 people were fined for not following the social distancing rules.
The total traffic violations were nearly 32% more than 2019, when 1,012 people were fined for various traffic violations. The prosecutions were done between 11pm on Thursday and 6am on Friday, when restrictions were imposed in Delhi to prevent large gathering in public places for New Year celebrations due to the pandemic. Similar restrictions were in place from 11pm on Friday to 6am on Saturday.
The drunk driving challans were issued after a gap of nearly nine months, as the Delhi Traffic Police had stopped using alcometers due to Covid-19 fears. Unlike the previous years, when police would use alcometers to measure the alcohol content in breath samples, the police carried out manual checking of vehicles and used blood samples to ascertain drunk driving.
As per the Delhi Traffic Police data, the drunk driving prosecution was almost 87% less than the fines issued in 2019. While 203 people were caught driving under the influence of alcohol during the New Year’s eve in 2019, this number came down to 26 in 2020. In 2018, a total of 274 people were prosecuted for the same.
{{/usCountry}}As per the Delhi Traffic Police data, the drunk driving prosecution was almost 87% less than the fines issued in 2019. While 203 people were caught driving under the influence of alcohol during the New Year’s eve in 2019, this number came down to 26 in 2020. In 2018, a total of 274 people were prosecuted for the same.
{{/usCountry}}Senior police officers attributed this decline in drunk driving prosecution to the fact that the motorists were not being stopped for measuring alcohol content in breath samples using alcometers.