Drink and or drive

A roomful of adult men sit obediently in rows of benches resembling a classroom. They watch intently as they are shown video clips of vehicles ramming into each other, and bodies flying and landing on the ground with a thud. From time to time, a collective shudder goes up in the group as particularly gruesome accident footages are shown.

The scene is from a class, but the class was not held in any school. This took place at the premises of the Metropolitan Traffic Police Department (MTPD) at Singha Durbar as part of the MTPD’s program to curb drunk driving. Most of those who are taking the class were found to be driving after consuming alcoholic substances.

There is no doubt that MTPD’s initiative has had positive effects: accidents have gone down by 16% after the measures were introduced. While there has been a modest 2% reduction in deaths after accidents, there has been a whooping 44% reduction in serious injuries. Most individuals who took the class came out looking dazed, evidently affected by the somber nature of the videos.

“I am definitely not going to be doing MaPaSe (Nepali abbreviation for consumption of alcoholic substance) again,” said Dipendra Budhathoki, a 41-year-old businessman, as he stood in line to collect his documents after the class.

The anti-DUI (driving under influence) measure is one of the rare government initiatives to have garnered considerable public support.

Ranjita Ghale, 23, has never driven under influence. But whenever she has guests who get drunk at her house, she gets the job of dropping them home safely because they are afraid of being stopped by the police. She does not mind the extra hassle and is instead supportive. “It’s for our own safety,” she says coolly.

But at the same time, MTPD’s measures still contain many loopholes and weak points that reduce their efficiency. Many people drive after 11 o’clock at night when there is no checking, or drive by alleys where they know there are no check posts. Also, people prefer to travel in cars rather than motorcycles when they drink because cars are stopped less frequently. MTPD spokesperson Superintendent of Police (SP) Basanta Panta theorized that this is because there are 500,000 motorcycles to approximately 50,000 cars.

“We stop only one car when we stop a dozen motorcycles, which gives the impression that we’re stopping more motorcycles. But it makes sense because there are fewer cars,” stated Panta.

However, some vehicles never seem to be stopped, which includes Traffic Police insiders and high-profile vehicles. SP Panta vehemently denies this charge, claiming a lot of bigwigs have been detained. But this statement is not enough to erase the impression of favoritism among the public.

“Everyone, irrespective of status, should be checked,” maintains Sailendra Koirala, manager of Sun Café and Bar.

Despite all these flaws, the point that gets the most flak has to be the zero tolerance of alcohol that the police enforce today. Medical literature tells us that tiny amounts of alcohol in our body don’t hamper our ability to make rational decisions. Sometimes we even absorb alcohol from harmless items like chocolates without realizing it. But in Nepal, the slightest amount of BAC (Blood Alcohol Concentration) can get your vehicleconfiscated for the night. A visibly hassled businessman Naresh Sah called the measure “terrorizing the people,” as he tried to get to the correction class on time.

Indeed, international standards are much more sensible. For example, in the US, 0.08% BAC is accepted. Though stricter than the US, most European countries are still more lenient than Nepal with a permissible limit of 0.05% BAC. But in Nepal, ASI Harisharan Poudel informed the class that the MTPD follows the Transport Management Act formulated in 1992. The Act in question specifies that a person who has consumed alcohol or addictive substances should not be allowed to drive.

“In the Newar community, it’s even traditional to take alcohol as sagun,” says Sangya Shrestha, 27, Associate Program Support Officer at Action Aid. “And in our times, drinking has become a part of socializing. The provision of zero tolerance in our law doesn’t make sense!”

SP Panta disagreed, claiming that zero tolerance is necessary, at least for a few years, because drinking and driving is so pervasive in Nepal. “We also know that alcohol is brewed in many homes,” he asserted, “so we cannot be lenient right now.”

But then, there are some areas where the MTPD is perhaps more than lenient, which provides loopholes to get away with drunk driving. One of them is their attitude towards female drivers. Far fewer women than men are stopped and checked. This has led to the trend of getting a woman to drive, even if she has consumed alcohol, because there is less chance that she will be caught. There are very few women performing the checks, the majority of the police on the field are men. And female drivers find it easy to avoid being checked by them.

SP Panta claimed that they were not lenient with women, and yet there was no woman to be found in the correction class. “Often we can tell by a woman’s appearance and behavior if she has been drinking. Since we know most Nepali women are not into drinking, we try not to harass them,” he explained, shedding light on how that could have happened.

Harassment, however, is something that a lot of drivers complain about, even those who are supportive of the measures to control drunk driving. When the police try to assess the driver’s drunkenness on the basis of appearance (read: by sniffing), sometimes they come too close and end up invading the driver’s physical space. This makes many uncomfortable, but surprisingly, this is not because the police lack breathalyzers. SP Panta stated that they had enough breathalyzers to go around for the field staff, and some to spare as well. “We have just ordered some more of them, so now we have 300 extra pieces of breathalyzers in our office,” he stated. But the practice of sniffing to assess drunkenness continues unabated.

Private sector employee Prabin Thapa, 27, has been a victim of harassment of another kind. Once, when he was going home on a Friday night, a policeman stopped him at Balkhu, and asked him “Why are you not drunk?” Prabin answered that he did not want to drink. “It’s Friday night, you must get drunk! Or maybe you’re carrying some in your bag?” the policeman asked.

It was then that Prabin realized that the policeman’s eyes were red and his speech was slurred. “Maybe we should check your alcohol level,” he remarked. The policeman instead yelled at him to shut up, and sent him on his way with a cheery “Go and get drunk now!”

Such incidents are not as rare as one would hope. Sangya, when she was halted for the umpteenth time, informed the policeman that she had been checked several times that day already. They replied with their most common refrain, that they were not there for recreation, and she must do what she was asked. And then she was asked silly questions including what is the color of a passerby’s dress, and what is the color of the traffic light.

SP Panta is well aware of these shortcomings of the field staff, and assured that MTPD will soon be providing “Service with a Smile.” Training for this program has already begun, and MTPD hopes to reach out to the people more effectively with this winning way.

One would hope that along with improving the services, MTPD would also work to tweak other loose ends. That would include avoiding multiple checkpoints on a single stretch of road, making sure all kinds of travelers are checked equally, and holding the checks at appropriate time. Most importantly, this would mean taking steps to alter the law of zero tolerance and giving the residents of the city more reasonable limits of drinking.

You drink, who drives?

While the ratio of drinks to food used to be 60-40 previously, now it is 40-60 in most restaurants. Sailendra Koirala, manager of Sun Café and Bar in Jhamsikhel, can testify to it. It is the same story with Backyard Food Joint and Pub where Neha Shah, the manager, informed that customers now leave earlier.

“Checking starts from 7 pm, and customers just have a sip or two of beer and leave at 6:30 pm,” she analyzed. She informed that if the customers stayed for an hour or two more, they would definitely drink more.

It is no secret that the entities hardest hit by Drink and Drive checks are the restaurants around town. Consumption of drinks in restaurants has reduced considerably after MTPD began checking for drunk drivers. Even though the number of customers has not reduced drastically, they tend to concentrate more on food than drink nowadays. This has resulted in a steep decline in profits for restaurants.

Neha believes many customers can drive perfectly well after a peg or two, and argues for alternatives that allow people to drink up to a healthy limit. “After all, restaurants that serve drinks are open until late at night, so how can you not drink?” she asks.

Neha herself employs one of the alternatives she talked about. Whenever her patrons need drivers, she calls Vigya IT Solutions. They provide drivers who can either drop the customer home in a taxi, or drive the customer’s vehicle. There is even a signboard prominently displayed on the wall of Backyard that says: “You drink, we drive.”

Tanka Ram Poudel, Director of Vigya IT Solutions, informed that the service they provide to Backyard is part of a pilot program that is in its third month now. Vigya IT Solutions is the technical consultant of the Taxi Association of Nepal, and they have handpicked about a dozen drivers from the Association who are on call to attend to restaurants. They now provide the “You Drink, We Drive” service to six restaurants: Moksh, GG Machaan, FC Sports Bar, Backyard, Falcha, and Retro.

“Services for drunk drivers are just one part of our program,” says Tanka. “In the long term, it is about providing organized night transport service.” To that end, Vigya IT Solutions also keeps a log of all the requests made and fulfilled, so that it is easy to go back and see which driver went where. This comes in handy whenever customers lose their possessions: their log makes tracking possessions easy. Tanka informed that this has turned out to be one of their strengths and most lost possessions have been found.

Vigya IT Solutions is looking to get restaurants and liquor companies to subsidize these rides so that the entire burden does not fall on the customer. “It will take a long time, but in the long term, the prospects for this business are endless,” says Tanka hopefully.

Indeed, drinking as a means of socializing has become a part of our culture, and the restriction on drunk driving has created a vacuum. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and the need for responsible drivers who can fill this vacuum has invented a new breed of services. In many countries like South Korea, drivers for drunks have become entrenched in society. And by the look of things, it seems not long before they become a permanent fixture of Nepali society too.