Under the Indian motor vehicle laws, using a cellphone while driving is illegal. Just like using the cell, many other distractions can happen while driving and are as dangerous as using the phone. Hyderabad Traffic Police is now planning to address the issue and come up with statutory warning messages at the movie theatres.
The number of people smoking while driving has increased in the recent past as per the cops. The movies will now screen the ‘smoking kills and ‘speed kills’ warning for the audience besides the ‘smoking is injurious to health’ and ‘alcohol consumption is injurious to health’ warnings before the start of the movies in theatres.
A senior traffic police official said,
“Like talking over phone while driving, smoking also distracts motorists. Cell phone driving is a violation of traffic rules and fines too are imposed. Smoking while driving is yet to be categorised as a violation and yet to be included in the law books,”
Using cell phones while driving is known for causing distractions and it is banned globally. According to the cops, smoking is also highly distractive while driving and can lead to accidents. But there are no researches or studies to show how distractive smoking while driving is compared to the using a mobile phone while driving. The Hyderabad Police say that smoking while driving is multi-tasking, which is a dangerous affair to do while keeping control of the car.
The Traffic Police team from Hyderabad is also planning to create awareness regarding traffic rules among the school children. As many as 5 lakh children and youths are targetted through various camps in schools and colleges. The teams also go to various other educational institutes to ensure that the traffic rules awareness is created at the ground level.
The Hyderabad Police is also planning to advertise as much as possible. The Hyderabad Traffic Training Institute will also take steps to spread awareness about distractive driving which will also include the smoking while driving. The cops are yet to comment on formulating new rules to ban such dangerous activity while driving.
While there is no rule in the book that can be used to book the drivers who smoke while driving yet, cops can issue a fine the car’s occupants for smoking in public place if the vehicle is on the public roads or parked at public parking. However, most of the traffic cops do not have the authority to fine for smoking. We believe that only the civilian police can issue fines against smoking in the public place.
Making new rules take a lot of time in India and instead of introducing a new law against smoking while driving, the Hyderabad cops are issuing statutory warnings. It may not be as effective as issuing fines to the culprits, but it sure will bring down the number of people who do it on the roads.
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