Driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol or other drugs is treated as any other offence in terms of enforcing traffic rules, officials say.[break]
Traffic Police normally fines a drunken driver Rs 200 as in any other breach. The penalty could go up to Rs 5,000 if cases of repeated offense go to the Mobile Court under the Ministry of Labor and Transport Management.
“The drunk drivers do not fear law at all,” said DIG Binod Singh, chief of Metropolitan Traffic Police Office (MTPO). “It is because this particular breach of traffic rule has not been addressed by laws properly.”
The Vehicle and Transport Management Act 1992 only says that it is forbidden to drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs but does not stipulate the action the offender should face.
“As drink driving has always been the major reason behind road fatalities, and since the menace has become alarming with increasing traffic here, we feel that we now need to analyze it under a particular header,” Singh added.
According to MTPO, there were a total of 6,500 reported cases of road accidents that killed 134 persons and seriously injured 701 persons over last 10 months in the capital. Most of them are found to have occurred due to drink driving.
“Almost every lethal collision, cases of hitting the dividers and hit-and-run cases seem to have taken place because of drink driving,” traffic police officials said.
The capital saw a deadly accident on August 5, 2009 in which a car driven by one teenager, Biplab Man Singh, who was reportedly drunk, killed six pedestrians at Bhotahity. Singh is now in judicial custody on the charge of reckless driving and prosecutors have demanded a 10-year jail term for him.
Unlike many countries where alcohol consumption means a traffic offence, people driving under the influence of alcohol in Nepal simply go scot free. “We simply fine and let the offenders go,” Singh said. “We need a specific law to deal with cases of drink driving.”
“If one can pay Rs 250 for a bottle of beer, he will easily dish out Rs 200 as a fine without having to fear about legal consequences,” he added.
Metropolitan Traffic only has two dozen breathalyzers -- some of them have even stopped working -- that are used in random checking. Short of breathalyzers, traffic officers are often seen sniffing suspected drivers.
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