Who use roads? We, the public. Who are responsible for maintaining road discipline? Traffic police, public servants. Who are in charge of public servants/ The politicians. Who are in charge of Politicians!!!
It says on the traffic manual that if the light is on amber and you have crossed the stop line you can continue across. But I know an incident where the traffic police charged the driver for this!
There is much talk about traffic police should be strict. But how can they be if the person they charge is connected and the charger is one punished:( So what to do? Easy. Whoever has a big vehicle, fancy vehicle,vehicle with a fancy number,vehicle with party flag and whoever violates boldly, talks back at them, zig zags past them will not be booked. If there is no accident, even if there is blatant violation like jumping signals, having banned horns, not having rear view mirror, sari guard, crash bar, not stopping at stop line, etc., then everything is ok! First let us give the traffic police authority as responsibility and authority go hand in hand. Then make them account for it.
A friend of mine was waiting at the Spencers signal and there comes this two wheeler at break neck speed with two youngsters on it thinking they can brake at the last moment. Just then an auto moved in the way and to avoid it they bent a little and went past my friend's car in such a way that their handle bar broke one rear light and gave a long, deep scratch on the side. Of course they fell at the zebra crossing and suffered injuries. Seeing their injuries my friend sympathised. Result. A bill for more than 10000/- from his repair shop.
It seems the education is used to spin out excuses than follow rules. Neither the educated nor the uneducated are concerned about others and seem to be bent upon oneupmanship and the traffic police are unconcerned as long as no accident happens in their beat!
As a concerned Indian I cynically wonder whether our representatives are as concerned. They get vip treatment whatever the mode of transport may be and get to hog the best part of the road in the best vehicles on road Commenting on our roads sometimes I feel the potholes on our roads are the governments of speed breakers as the real speed breakers vanish whenever a road is relaid which is often!
In our traffic the meaning of green is go, amber is go fast and red is go faster!
Chennai traffic police announced an year back that they will fine those with high beam on. But as all their announcements it died a natural death Neither the police nor the drivers/riders(d/r for short) seem to remember or care. Of course some vehicles go even without low beam. The worst thing is the offenders do not even care for the affected d/r's dim dip routine. Maybe they do not understand Still worse is some cars, mainly cabs, having their right head light on high beam and left on low beam!
Another story. A father is taking his child to school on his bike. She suddenly exclaims "father, I pity that uncle" showing him another biker. Father asks "why?". "See, it seems he doesn't have any space on his bike to attach his helmet. He is wearing it on his head. poor uncle".
I just started from a signal. The speed was below 30 kmph. Not riding near the median as I know the possibility of a bent rod sticking out. All of a sudden I felt something pull me backwards and turning my handlebar to the right. Tried to correct my course but fell down on my left bruising my knee and foot. Thank god! Other vehicles avoided me. When I got up and righted the bike I found a cable wire running high above in a loop around my right rear view mirror. It has snapped some how and fell down at the moment my bike was passing. Of course I did not sue the cable owner!
Some one said 'In US cars run on gas;in India cars run on horns'. This is true for other vehicles also. As far as I know the purpose of horn is to let the other know about your presence. If he/she gives way you can pass. But people seem to think that just because they have honked their horn they should be given way! They will not consider the reasons like that the other person is boxed in, is going to turn right with indicator on!, has to avoid a pot hole, etc.
Drunken driving and penalties
The difficulty with implementing all these penalties, like demerit points, cancellation of licence in our country is how to track these things. It is a well known fact that many of the drivers/riders haven't seen a license in their life, though they may be riding for the past 40 years! And it is very easy to get a license. There was a reported case of a man without legs getting a car driving license!
Then who is to impose these penalties? Our toothless, corrupt traffic police! It is said that they pay money to powers that be to be posted in lucrative areas, same as posting to anti-prohibition wing which is lucrative. There are people who think that only document they need while driving is the legal tender, that too in 10s!
There are people who say that penalties will not be effective. Educating the public is the best solution. But as the famous words of wisdom goes 'you can wake up a person who sleeps, but not one who pretends to be sleeping'!
So what is the solution? Political will(read-no vote bank politics) and non-interference by politicians for some sustained time will show people that the government means business! But who is listening? Clinking of glasses drown out everything.
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