Police drive soft on drunk women

Are you a woman and high on liquor? Then you are at liberty to sit behind the wheel in the Capital.

Are you a woman and high on liquor? Then you are at liberty to sit behind the wheel in the Capital.

Delhi traffic police, which does not leave any stone unturned to catch drunk drivers on city roads and send them to jail, however, do not check women drivers during drives against drink driving.

Delhi Police have sent about 2,500 persons behind the bars for drink driving in over a year’s time. They however, do not include even a single woman. According to a senior police officer, women are better drivers than men and are not required to be checked for drink driving.

Department insiders, however, cited a different reason. “Hundreds of women visit watering holes at city’s plush localities including Saket, Connaught Place and Khan Market among others. We do not have enough women staff to put them on duty during late night drives. So, women drivers are not checked through alcometers,” said an official on condition of anonymity.

Satyendra Garg, joint commissioner of police (traffic), however said: “Women in Delhi do not generally drink and drive. They cause less than 2% of all fatal road mishaps in the city.”

But the fact is that only 7% of about 20 lakh Delhi drivers are women, according to senior deputy commissioner of transport department. Last year, drunk women drivers were involved in at least three major road accidents.

Delhi police have a strength of 5,937 personnel in traffic unit of which only 508 are women.