Girls dance away the night at Bhagirathi Vihar, Gandhi Ghat, and art college students welcome 2012 with a sand sculpture and candles in Patna on Saturday. Pictures by Nagendra Kumar Singh and Sachin

Patna, Jan. 1: Residents of the capital, it seems, have woken up to the perils of drunken driving.

Very few people were caught for driving under the influence of alcohol on New Year’s Eve, which is synonymous with revelry.

The Patna police, in a special drive last night, nabbed 250 people under various police stations for violating traffic norms. However, very few of them were under the influence of alcohol. People who were detained were mainly accused of rash driving, triple rides or driving on the wrong side. Only a dozen were found driving under the influence of alcohol.

The maximum number of people was detained from Kotwali police station under which the Dakbungalow roundabout and the Patna Junction areas fall.

Around 70 people were detained at the police station, followed by SK Puri police station, 42, and 23 people were detained from the Gandhi Maidan area.

Under Kotwali police station, L.M. Sharma, the deputy superintendent of police (law and order) detained around 18 people. He said: “Out of the 18 detained, only two were found driving under the influence of alcohol. The duo was detained from the Dakbungalow roundabout.”

However, trend followers said the small number of people detained for driving under the influence of alcohol raises the question of Patna police’s failure to use breath analysers properly.

To check drunken and rash driving, three breath analysers and speedgun radars were brought by the Patna police around six months ago.

However, because of lack of proper training, the equipment were gathering dust in the city traffic department. Moreover, the breath analysers and speedgun radars were pressed into service only a month ago. The biggest question is whether the police are trained enough to handle the gadgets.

On being asked whether the breath analysers that the city police use function properly or not, Tahid Parwez, the traffic DSP (zone I), said the analysers used by Patna traffic police function.

Parwez added that because of bad weather last night many people preferred to celebrate the day at their home or clubs and thus less number of people was detained driving under the influence of alcohol.

The area falling under traffic zone-I include Dakbungalow, Gandhi Maidan, Exhibition Road, Frazer Road.

These areas have many restaurants and hotels where parties are organised regularly. Parwez said fine of Rs 14,000 was collected from traffic violators falling under zone-I.

A person nabbed for driving under the influence of alcohol is detained for 24 hours and after a warning, he/she is released.

However, the city police’s tall claim of keeping a tab on drunken driving had brought desired results, as there was no report of any major accident because of drunken driving reported on the New Year’s Eve.