Indian Traffic Mess – our policy makers must act …

Driving in India is a nightmare, it’s frustrating and annoying. Yes,this sentence is true to a great extent. Some say that building new wide roads is only solution to congestion. Some say that the pace of infrastructure growth in India is not matching the growth in vehicle ownership, so traffic conditions are bound to get worse in future.

According to the World Health Organisation report more people die of road accidents in India than any other place in the world every day. People love to talk about the growing traffic concerns; it’s a hot topic to be discussed at every social occasion. What many of us don’t realize is that Traffic rules are never followed here, the rules here are meant to be broken at every level. Indian traffic rules, regulations or signs are not known to common Indian road users, Indian License is given to anyone who can provide an identity, residential proof and to any one who can balance and ride a motorbike or drive a car. There is no formal training or assessment done here. Now this is one of the main factors of this undisciplined growing traffic concerns.

Some countries like Australia, UK or USA have one of the toughest driving tests however it can be taken even by school dropouts or illiterates, the main point is that by the time one passes the test, the correct road etiquette is ingrained in to the drivers. This aspect is totally missing in India.

Never were any of us trained to stop at a Zebra Crossing or give way to Pedestrians, more sadly there are no footpaths for pedestrians to walk, And where they exist they are encroached not by hawkers, slums, toilet blocks or badly designed bus stops, poorly placed electricity boxes and last but not least garbage skips.

Most Indian drivers son’t understand how to use the vehicles headlights. Many drivers don't use any lights even when it is dark, on other hand, some use the high beam even in built up urban areas. Our motor driving schools don’t have trainers with real knowledge of traffic rules or driving ettiquettes. Often wrong information and habits are passed on to the new learner drivers. The commonest mis-information shared is with regards ''flashing of lights''. As per traffic rules in India or anywhere in the world, flashing lights is illegal. In India drivers flash lights to demand right of his way. In contrast, in many western countries flashing of lights means “you first” or “giving way”.

The other mis-information is around dealing with acute bends on a road. Again, driving institutes in India are culprits in teaching two wrong things - honk and flash lights as you approach a bend. The recommended and correct thing to do is to approach the bend as slowly as possible, this is the only way to ensure road safety around bends. When its twilight or night time, keep your low beam 'on' throughout without flashing it. In addition to all this we have the cows, goats and dogs on our streets and our authorities don't do anything about them.

Our leaders always talk about improving the standard of life and basic amenities, they are all aware of the problems mentioned above. They talk about constructing roads and highways or wide express ring roads, but never they bother about the implementing any of the of road safety or norms.

The Indian government talks about buying technology, products and weapons from western countries. We see the development of buildings in Hyderabad, Bangalore or Gurgoan and think this is development. Our leaders also show us these and say we have developed, our people belive that India has developed.

I think now its time for the policy makers in India including our leaders and Bureaucracy to get some training lessons from abroad on the road safety issues and they must learn to make our roads safer and emphasis must be given to make our roads more safer rather than wider.