Roads and we!!

When was the last time, you saw someone skip a signal, a motorist squeeze his way in front of your car, two people fighting with their cars right in the middle of the road because one person hit the other’s car? Or while you were waiting to park your car someone zoomed in and parked as if she didn’t see you?

How did you feel?? Or what did you do??

With more and more people in the world and in the workforce, roads are becoming increasingly crowded. In our daily process of commuting we see the road racer, the frequentlane changer, the red light runner or the aggressive driverespecially during peak hours, bad weather, congestedroads and narrow lanes.Our response to such stressful situations may often be anger.

Studies show that in India many drivers have a feeling of road rage because it is a cultural norm. Anger and frustration comes naturally while driving on Indian roads, People learn this behavior from childhood when being driven around by parents and adults. The government has formulated laws relating to compensation cases for rash or negligent driving, but in practice these are not always enforced.

Bangalore , once upon a time called the Green city or Garden city is now a concrete jungle. The government lays more and more roads, expands them and what not - by cutting all trees wherever possible (it is a great pity that a 100 year old banyan tree was cut down to expand the road - I have hardly seen any such tree these days). Still the traffic has not gone down. There is a race on the road, nobody wants to just reach the destination - they just want to race around, pass the signal when it is green, block way for others, drive even on footpaths, honk for nothing, so on!

The Government has to understand that more of traffic is caused with the attitude of the people and not just with the facilities. Enforcing immediate fines can cut this down to a larger extent. This is what happens in developed countries! The rules are very stringent - here it is not, because ours is a land of principles, not a land of rules. However when there is not any person sticking to it, it has to be enforced. Any of us driving in any other country follow all the rules - because the fines are too high! But the same person drives negligently here - do we take the privilege to commit mistakes because it is our home country?

We wear western clothes, we are westernized in appearance, however where are we with the attitude? Is this what we would leave for the generations to come?