If you're in the habit of having one for the road and driving, this should sober you up. These days in Delhi, there's a strong chance a cop will hail you down, impound your car, and fine you. You can then arrange transport and get home, or sit out the night in the nearest hospital and get sober.
So get this: in the last two days, the Delhi traffic police have challaned as many as 260 people for driving drunk. There are 40 squads of policemen (about 200 cops in all) waiting to ambush drunk drivers between 10 pm and 2am. They're staking out fifteen "strategic" locations—mostly five star hotels, restaurants and bars.
The drive appears to be a reaction to the accident at the Chirag Dilli flyover — the high speed crash killed four youths — but the police say that it also has to do with the marriage season and the onset of winter. “It's a time when people have a tendency to drink more,” says Joint Commissioner Traffic Maxwell Pereira.
Most of the challans were handed out in South Delhi, which has the greatest concentration of watering holes patronised by Delhi's young and restless.
The police were specially on the lookout for tipsy drivers on roads where speeding is a common phenomneon: NH8, the Mehrauli Road and the Moolchand and IIT flyovers. What they found was that people weren't just driving under the influence, they were also driving unacceptably fast. A simple drill is followed once a suspect is spotted. They ask the vehicle to stop (if you don't, they air your number on their wireless sets and the next post gets you, so it’s useless trying this stunt). Next they ask for your licence. If you can fish it out in one go your chances of being let off brighten, if you fumble you're just asked to pull up to one side.
It's pointless offering excuses, the cops have heard them all.
"The standard excuse is: 'I was at a party, besides, I'm related to …", says an ACP who was on field duty last night, "but in most cases people were so drunk they could hardly speak."