Concerned over the sharp rise in the number of road accidents caused by drunken driving in the recent past, the city police are planning to make it compulsory for the bar and pub owners to not allow customers who have consumed liquor beyond a certain limit to drive their cars.
The senior officials of the city police held a meeting with the representatives of various bars and restaurants at Lalbazar on Saturday in which the issues related to drunken driving were discussed at length.
The meeting was the fall out of a recent accident which took place last week in which model Sonika Chauhan was killed and actor Bikram Chatterjee was injured.
The city police have asked that the bar owners to engage their employees to ensure that a customer is not allowed to consume alcohol beyond a certain limit and drive his or her vehicle.
The employees of all the bars will be given breath analysers, an instrument which will determine the level of
consumption of liquor by a person.
If someone is caught to have drunk beyond a permissible limit, the bar employees will not allow them to drive a vehicle. In such cases, they will book a taxi for the person who is heavily drunk.
Various app-based cab providers like OLA and Uber would be asked to keep their cabs stationed near the bars and pubs during late night so that they can take such people home. The bar owners would be asked to arrange a pool of drivers who can drive these drunken people home if the situation demands so. According to the police, it has often been seen that accidents take place due to drunken driving. The number of accidents could be checked if the incidents of drunken driving could be reduced.
At the initial level, the new scheme would be introduced in around 30 bars and restaurants across the city. It would be implemented in other bars in phases, a senior police officer said.
It was learnt that the city police were also mulling to introduce "designated driver" concept under which those going to bars will have to designate a person among themselves who will abstain from drinking so that he can safely drop them back.
A senior police officer said driving high-end cars at breakneck speed at night has become a major menace in the city. Everyday road accidents are taking place involving owner drivers. Additional police force have been deployed at night and temporary guard walls are put up to check speed.
The police teams carry breath analysers but such measures have failed to yield desired results and so if the drivers in inebriated states are identified at the source and not allowed to drive, late night
accidents will come down in the city. Bars are not supposed to serve drinks to persons beyond a certain limit and request them not to drive their own vehicles but this rule is never followed by the bars
seriously and often the customers in inebriated states turn down the request.
But as actions would be taken against the bar owners for not following the instructions, they would pursue
them seriously.