SUNDARAM CHITRAMPAT
The rampant accidents and deaths that take place on Indian roads is the result of reckless driving due to ignorance of traffic rules by both drivers and riders of motorised vehicles. Every individual, born and brought up on Indian soil, is inherently encouraged to forgo all rules whether it is traffic rules or otherwise.
Vehicular traffic will never be accident free! Anything that moves forward, sideways or backwards can collide with another moving or stationary object or careen or turtle due to many reasons beyond the control of person on the wheel. It could happen as a result of mechanical failure, vagaries of weather and similar other cataclysms. Other than that, almost every accident is the result of violations of traffic rules. In every country vehicular traffic related accidents happen every minute of the day and night. Notwithstanding, India is at the Numero Uno (number one) spot in traffic accidents and deaths! Why?
The rampant accidents and deaths that take place on Indian roads is the result of reckless driving due to ignorance of traffic rules by both drivers and riders of motorised vehicles. Every individual, born and brought up on Indian soil, is inherently encouraged to forgo all rules whether it is traffic rules or otherwise. It’s not at all a person’s fault as he or she was moulded to behave that way! What a child follows and practices is what he or she sees/hears and experiences from the very day of its birth. A child mimics everything that it sees and hears is a fact which is self-explanatory. For example, an Indian child, born and brought up by its parents in the U.K. will pronounce English words as the English people do utter them! Likewise, if the same child was brought in Japan, it will have developed a Japanese style of speaking. Not only the spoken style but behaviour too would be adopted. There is a saying – when there are only two British people waiting to board a bus or to buy something from a store etc. they form a queue!
The diffusion in writing in the foregoing paragraph was to establish that all that we do is what we see, hear and experience from childhood or we mimic what we have been exposed to in our formative years. The chaos and lawlessness that prevail on Indian roads is nothing but replication of what road users have been exposed to from day one.
One has to use common sense to remember that the people who are at the helm of vehicular traffic system and its governance in India are products of the very same system. 99% of them would never see with their naked eye anything other than what they see on Indian roads. Anything that is being experienced time and again on a minute by minute basis wouldn’t be felt as anything unnatural or bad or dismal. Such people who steer the system are less likely to have foresight to find effective solutions for addressing the problems they encounter. They possess a paralysed mind unfortunately.
For example, pillion riders of two-wheelers are exempted from wearing helmets. Whose brains were behind it? What is the logic in it? As a matter of fact, a pillion rider without a helmet on his/her head is twice at risk if the vehicle meets with an accident. No human being with common sense, literate or otherwise, would enact such a law. The very purpose of imposing law on two wheeler riders to wear helmets all over the world is scornfully defeated when the pillion rider is allowed to ride without a helmet. On an average, four Indians ride on a bike i.e. the husband, wife and two children, as if, there is no danger of accident. In the event of an accident everyone blames the other for the cause of the accident
What is the solution for changing Indian roads from its current state of malignant indiscipline? The Police hierarchy at the top should be trained in traffic rules and should be informed about ethical practices outside India, in a few countries where traffic rules are followed/observed and/or implemented strictly for a minimum three months. Why three months? As the saying goes ‘old habits die hard’- They must rewrite the rule books and implement them religiously. The first requisite for its effective implementation is that all the drivers ought to be given one more driving test.
Permanent solution to treat and cure this endemic disease is to educate children the do’s and don’ts of traffic rules and regulations from kindergarten to class 10. Examinations should be held in every class to assess the child’s assimilation on the subject. To save the posterity from risk of death and permanent life destroying injuries, the current generation must rouse from its hibernation and take the cudgel to inculcate ethical discipline to mould the young minds to create a better and bright future for them.
These children who are being taught the values of following traffic rules will in turn become the policemen/policewomen of the society to transform their elders from their present indifferent attitude to a more responsible one.
