The Bengaluru Traffic Police personnel.
Credit: DH File Photo
Bengaluru: In a special drive last week, the Bengaluru Traffic Police (BTP) registered 668 cases of drunk driving and 185 cases of speeding.
Across 53 traffic police stations, a total of 43,253 vehicles were checked, and 668 drivers were found to be driving under the influence of alcohol. Similarly, they registered 185 cases of speeding and collected Rs 1,89,000 in fines.
In all of 2024, the police booked 23,620 cases of drunk driving, with the highest number of cases (4,284) recorded in September. Since then, they have been conducting weekly drives, focusing on drunk driving cases from Thursday to Sunday.
As of March 2025, 9,866 cases had been registered, averaging 110 cases per day. In March alone, they recorded 3,467 cases. The JB Nagar Traffic Police Station, which covers areas such as Indiranagar, Domlur, SV Road, and Kodihalli, registered 819 drunk driving cases — a number that has since increased.
HSR Layout, Madiwala, Bellandur, Adugodi, and Mico Layout stations recorded between 300 and 385 cases each, according to real-time data from the BTP website.
T Mahadeva, Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic, Southeast), told DH that some of the highest numbers of cases being recorded in the southeastern part of the city are due to the high concentration of pubs, bars, and liquor stores. "There are many colleges here, many offices as well. This part of the city has an active nightlife, so we see many drunk driving cases. We also have people from Tamil Nadu coming over during the weekend to experience the nightlife," he said.
An officer from the Madiwala Traffic Police Station also noted that since such special drives have increased in frequency, the number of alcohol-related self-crashes has come down. "We conduct very stringent checks of a much larger number of vehicle users. Self-crashes have come down by a large margin, and the number of people driving under the influence has also reduced in comparison to the several hundred vehicles we check every night," he said.
The police also booked 6,878 vehicle users for speeding beyond permissible limits until the end of March this year, a majority of them (1,848) registered by the Devanahalli Traffic Police for violating the 80 kmph speed limit on the Kempegowda International Airport elevated road.
This was followed by other major corridors such as Mysuru Road, NICE Road, and Hosur Road, where long stretches and fast-moving traffic, especially during the night, encourage speeding.