Number of tipsy women drivers on the rise; not enough lady cops to conduct checks

It has emerged that the 20-year-old girl, who was driving the ill-fated car that ran over a cobbler sleeping on the footpath in Kushaiguda on Sunday night, was not drunk after all. Cases under sections 304A (Causing death by negligence), 337 (Causing hurt by act endangering life) and 427 (Mischief causing damage) of IPC have been filed against the engineering student who was returning from a pre-birthday bash with three of her friends, two of whom were drunk, revealed the police.However, there can be no denying that instances of women being booked for drunk driving is on the rise. According to statistics shared by the Traffic Police, 23 women were booked for drunk driving in Hyderabad last year. The number of cases has jumped to 31 already this year, as on April 24. And this is just a minuscule number when compared to the number of women who have admitted to Hyderabad Times, on condition of anonymity, that they have been guilty of drinking and driving, despite being fully aware of the risks involved. But why are so many tipsy women getting behind the wheels? The reasons range from them thinking it’s safer to drive drunk than hop into a cab (ironic, yes!) to being under the impression that cops will never catch them because they are, well, women!
“I know it is wrong and it could even be risky, but it feels much safer to drive yourself home than get into a cab when you are semi-conscious. so I prefer taking my own vehicle on a night out but I do make sure I drink less,” confesses Priya*, a techie from Gachibowli.
Those like Priya are emboldened by the fact that more often than not they get past drunk driving checks as the cops go easy on women. What’s worse, men take advantage of this fact too. “When we return after a night of clubbing, I usually assign the driving duties to my female friends to avoid getting stopped by police. women drivers are often let off on the assumption that they wouldn’t drink, and this trick has worked for us every single time,” admits Amit*, IT professional who lives in Nanakramguda.
But why are cops letting drunk women off?
DCP Babu Rao of Hyderabad Traffic Police says, “Every weekend, 60-70 citizens are booked for drunk driving, and a small part of that is made up by women drunk drivers...” ‘A small part’ being the operative phrase here. The absence of women officers could be the reason behind fewer women getting checked for drunken driving, reckons Vinod Kumar, Chief functionary officer of Road Safety India. “Today, more women drive around in their own vehicles and they opt to drive themselves home even when under the influence of alcohol. Law enforcement is the main issue here. Though Hyderabad does much better than other cities, the lack of women officers in these enforcement teams is glaring. When was the last time you were checked by a woman cop for drunk driving?” asks Vinod.
There are about 3000 officials across ranks in Hyderabad wing of Traffic Police, but the number of women officers is nothing close to the 33% mark as mandated. “We do have women staff, but we don’t deploy them for managing traffic as it is a harsh job,” admits Anil Kumar, Additional CP for Hyderabad Traffic Police.
In Cyberabad, there are just two traffic police stations — Gachibowli and Madhapur Traffic police stations — which have just three permanent women traffic officials each. The traffic police borrow women staffers from the Law and Order police stations — where the gender ratio is already skewed severely — to bridge the gap. “Whenever the need arises we request the Law and Order stations to send us women staff to manage the load,” says DCP Babu Rao of Hyderabad City Police.
But in reality this never materialises, says an inspector of traffic from Cyberabad zone. “We don’t need women staff specifically to use breath analysers as we don’t touch anyone when it’s used. So there is no need for women officers. It’s only when they misbehave that we need women staff,” he explains.
Well, in the last one month itself, multiple instances of women misbehaving with traffic cops when apprehended, have made news. In fact, at times the women resorted to misbehaving with the hapless cops in an attempt to shield their male counterparts who were caught red handed.
Sample these: A woman co-passenger from Jubilee hills threw rocks and stones at the police to prevent her friend from being fined. In another case, a video of a woman from Malakpet who hurled choicest of abuses on a traffic cop when her husband was apprehended for not wearing a helmet, went viral.
Vinod Kumar reckons women officials have a big role to play in curbing the menace of drunk driving among women. “Women constables need to be part of such drives, not just to control female drivers who tend to misbehave, but also to ensure that erring woman drivers do not go scot free,” says Vinod Kumar.