The Traffic Police are on a spree to hunt drunken drivers and in that spirit, they caught 67 offenders on Wednesday and last night they have caught another 69. Today being a weekend, they are sure to have a better haul. If you like to drink and drive yourself, then better stay home this weekend. Else, just take your wife along. She can be your designated driver. But then again, they say 10 % of the drunk - drivers booked last year were women.
The Traffic Police now have the latest gadgets to justify and testify. They are equipped with two instruments — a breath analyser and an alcometer. The first one checks the presence of alcohol and second shows the level of alcohol. But how accurate are these instruments? They are used world over but then they have to be constantly calibrated and the user must be trained well, according to some reports. Does the introduction of these new gadgets in Mysore avoid non - drunk drivers from suffering the sniffer cops?
Most of us in the past year have been victims of nostril shattering and eye - watering breaths of cops. As you drive after 10 pm in Mysore, you are stopped by a group of Policemen who ask you to put your windows down and then like curious snakes, shove half their body into your car and come close to your face and softly, almost romantically ask, “Sir, drinks?”
For a moment, you are confused whether the cop is offering you a drink or asking if you have been drinking. They can be very polite when they want to be. If you say no as softly as they asked you, they then move closer to your face and once again ask, “No hard drinks sir?”
If he does not sniff any alcohol, he withdraws out of the window like a slithery uninterested anaconda and you are cheerfully asked to go on. But as you raise your windows, you are left with a nostril full of chaos and your brain is numb processing the fact that your nostril was just violated by the bad breath of a sniffing cop. You end up being a bad - breath analyser.
The truth is, most of us feel bad for these cops who are doing their job with the limited support system they have. We are sure a cop does not enjoy smelling a drunken breath. Of course, some people say the cop is actually sniffing for cash but that cannot be generalized just like how every driver on the road past 10 pm is not drunk.
However, drunk - driving checks throw up a lot of comic situations. Cops stopping anyone at night can be a very petrifying experience. One night, my friend and I along with his wife were driving back from Bangalore. His wife went to sleep in the back seat and as we were entering Mysore at the tollgate, cops stopped us. A cop looking quite intimidating calmly asked my friend, “Had drinks at the dhaba?” My friend replied completely petrified, “No sir, coming straight from Bangalore sir, didn’t stop anywhere.”
Then the cop, noticing my overly nervous friend asked, “Who is that in the back seat?” To which my friend who was by then a nervous wreck said, “Sir, your wife sir…” Then suddenly realising his mistake and getting even more petrified, he said, “No... No sir, my wife sir … She is sleeping sir and I don’t drink sir.” The good cop couldn’t stop smiling and sent us on our way.
In another incident in Bangalore, as I was driving with my mischievous cousin after having a good time at a bar, once again cops stopped us. Immediately my cousin said, “Keep him engaged… keep him talking.” The last thing one wants to do is indulge in a long conversation with a tired Policeman late at night.
The Policeman asked me if I had consumed alcohol to which I replied, “Yes, but very little as I am not keeping well.” My cousin who seemed to be squirming and sweaty once again ordered me like an army commando, “engage him” and so I did by asking the Policeman why they did not have a breath analyser.
The Policeman, clearly irritated with the unnecessary question and sensing something amiss, did the anaconda move. He slithered into my window and came within smooching distance of my face and as he was taking a deep breath to sniff me out, my cousin let out a big, loud and prolonged… flatulence. The poor Policeman was taken aback and all he said was “Thoo idiots,” laughed and sent us home. Luckily, both the times we met Policemen with good sense of humour and both times, I was not breaking the law.
When you haven’t broken the law, it tends to make life easy with the Police. The rules are simple — follow the law, respect the Policeman and answer just what you have been asked. Dropping names, making excuses and an attitude of “I can bribe” will complicate things and get one in trouble very fast. In fact, our former Mysore Police Commissioner Praveen Sood who now handles all traffic issues in Bangalore, was considerate enough to raise the alcohol level from 30 mg of 100 ml of blood to 40 mg. He suspended the Banasawadi Traffic Inspector for booking a driver who had an alcohol level of 32 mg saying that the operation to catch drunk drivers was to discourage drunken - driving and create awareness and not merely to collect fines.
More importantly, is breath analyser enough to get drunk drivers off the road? The breath analyser and alcometer are only as effective as the person using the instrument. So sometimes the Policeman tends to make a self - assessment of whether a person is truly drunk and this ambiguity leaves space for “negotiation.”
In the USA, they do the Field Sobriety Test. This test is meant to check a suspect’s ability to perform the type of mental and physical co - ordination required for driving. The test includes one – leg - stand, finger – to - nose touch etc. If you see someone in the USA doing this in the middle of the night in front of a Policeman, NO, he is not demonstrating his yoga skill but is being tested for drunken driving. But this test is just to gauge and is not 100% conclusive. Blood test is the conclusive one.
So how much should a person drink so as not to be pulled for drunken driving? Once again, that depends on a person’s weight, gender (men process alcohol faster than women), stress level, age and most importantly, food consumption. A small or diluted drink along with periodic food intake reportedly is the safest way to make sure your breath does not aggravate the breath analyser or get drunk. Of course, if you drink too much, no matter how much you eat, you will be hauled up.
So the next time you are stopped, don’t worry about the anaconda in khaki. We have gadgets now. Oh! Wait sorry, they only have 15 for the entire city. Guess the sniffing snake attacks will continue….
