Drunk driving led to 6,000 accidents in city this year: th

By our Staff Reporter

GUWAHATI, Dec 12: Guwahati Police Commissioner Hiren th has said that drunk driving has led to the occurrence of around 6,000 accidents in Guwahati this year.

The City Police Commissioner said this at a press meet at Guwahati Press Club today on the eve of the month-long awareness campaign – don’t drink and drive – to be launched in the city from December 13 by Advertising Club, Guwahati. The campaign will conclude on January 12, 2017.

th said: “Drunk driving is reported more in India. Around 12 lakh people die annually because of drunk driving. Around 5 crore accidents occur in the country annually because of drunk driving. Ours is a welfare state where most of the people are educated. We live in the 21st century. We need to be duty-bound not to drive after drinking. Awareness on – don’t drink and drive – should first come from family members as they’re the ones who can make the awareness ingrained in the brains of drunk drivers better. On its part, the administration can charge fines and punish for drunk driving. In fact, those who resort to drunk driving are ones who never think of their family members. In order to do away with this practice, the police administration has been on drives like checking of drivers and riders. We’re using breathalysers to ascertain if a driver has consumed alcohol or not. Such measures have brought down the number of accidents due to drunk driving to a great extent.”

Guwahati DCP Amanjeet Kaur said: “Such awareness campaign brings down the number of accidents due to drunk driving. We all know the consequence of drunk driving as we are an educated lot. Such campaign just reminds us of the consequence afresh. However, being educated, drunk drivers don’t feel like coughing up fines for the crime they commit. Sometimes, there are as many as hundreds of accidents due to drunk driving on a single day. We’ve formed as many as 16 citizens’ committees to check the mece through discussion. One of the surest ways to check the mece is children playing a proactive role. When a child refuses to board the car of his/her father driving it after consuming alcohol, a father will have to think twice before resorting to drunk driving again.”

Advertizing Club Guwahati president G Kibriya said: “Don’t drink and drive campaign is a complete drive involving all forms of mass media like TV, radio, newspaper, advertizing agencies and the like. School children will be involved during the drive, especially on the eve of the New Year. The students will visit clubs and other places that are considered sources of drunk driving.”