A friend of mine asked me to write an article on how people don’t obey traffic rules and the risks these people pose to innocent pedestrians. Scooterists and others don’t obey traffic signals and a lot of them are busy on the phone when they are commuting. My friend spoke about how people like pregnant women and senior citizens are at risk.
I hardly commute anymore so it does not affect me or my loved ones very much. I am also the sort of person who is lost in his thoughts all the time thinking of abstract subjects. I am not too bothered that people don’t have civic sense.
But one closer thought I found that I had some comments to offer on this subject. These are:
- Obviously there is the risk of injury to all people – not just those who are most vulnerable
- It also does not send the right message to tourists who visit India. My brother in law is a UK citizen. He is so apprehensive of the chaos of Mumbai roads that he does not even want to cross the road on his own. I am sure there are many more people like him who have similar fears.
I think that to some extent we will have to live with this chaos on the roads. Most people in India are not well educated and have not had a proper upbringing. Until India becomes a developed country and all people have a good education this inconvenience will continue.
And one of the main advantages of living in India is that it is a low cost of living country. And the fact that people are willing to work for a small salary in India is because they are not educated. There is an advantage attached to every disadvantage.
At the same time I think some improvements can be made to the existing system. Below are my suggestions:
- Enforcement of traffic rules strictly by the police.
- Corporates like Swiggy, Zomato, BlinkIt and so on employ delivery agents who use two wheelers. These companies need to be motivated (and if necessary forced) to have higher standards when they are employing people as delivery agents. Requiring the companies to pay a stiff fine every time their delivery agents break traffic rules may make these corporates more careful.
My friend is a very civic minded person and offered to share my blog with the Commissioner of Police and top politicians if he liked what I have written. I hope I have met his standards.
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