You are not stuck in traffic, you are ‘the traffic’ that you resent so much!

A bus full of people reduces about 50-80 vehicles from roads. A train coach will reduce about 100 vehicles if it reaches where the need is. 

"A developed country is not where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation."

You are not stuck in traffic, you ARE the traffic!’ – Originally a slogan from Copenhagen to promote sustainable means of transport has become a timely reminder for many city planners and administrators in the 21st Century. It is quite self-sympathising and self-deluding to believe that ‘I am stuck in traffic’ – as if there is a larger conspiracy to do so. Smart motorists realise that they are also contributor to the problem of traffic and they cannot get away by putting the blame on others for driving just like them. Recently I have been guilty of adding one more car in the city by buying one. The more I drive the car, the more I realise how I am contributing to the problem.

When you are a car driver, you would like wider roads and less traffic coming your way. Wider roads, free parking and smoother functioning of traffic coupled with lack of efficient public transport compel a lot of people to take up driving. Yet we have a very low car ownership in the country compared to many industrialised countries. For example, the US have about 750 cars per thousand people and we have not even reached about 100 motor vehicles per thousand people. In short, motor vehicles will be growing at unprecedented rates and we will have to learn to deal with this problem like other countries.

Cities around the world are realising that unlimited supply of wider roads and flyovers is not possible. These conventional solutions of keep building ‘roads over roads’ are not economically or environmentally sustainable. By building a maze of flyovers and by allowing relentless traffic, Delhi has attracted the worst air pollution, unsafe roads and never-ending traffic. Besides, who likes to live in a city, which has a jumble of flyovers on every junction but hardly any sight of greens! Even car drivers are not happy with these solutions because they neither get wide roads nor smoothly operated traffic. As new owners add more and more vehicles, the once-upon-a-time nice roads to drive on get congested.

Many cities have realised that they need to make ‘life-style changes’ to solve the problem of their clogged arteries and some by-passes here and they will not help in the long run. As Petro Gustavo - the mayor of Bogota famously said, “A developed country is not where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation.” Promoting public transport and making it so efficient and affordable that a majority uses it is a challenge worth taking up.

A bus full of people reduces about 50-80 vehicles from the roads. A metro train coach will reduce about 100 vehicles provided it reaches where the need is. Many vehicle drivers will not mind walking short distances or taking public transport provided there are better facilities. Cities in Gujarat have surely made a good beginning in these directions compared to many other Indian cities but they will need to do much more. Over the last few years, the awareness amongst the citizens about the benefits of public transport is growing. This needs to be now backed up with the adequate investments, long-term plans and efficient implementation. Good governance gives us possibilities of being a solution to the problem and not only the contributors. Hope, we get our due!

(15th June, 2015: DNA Ahmedabad edition, Cities Supplement, Page 5)

big cars, bigger egos and culture of rule-breaking kills people on the roads!

We are curiously watching the case of Salman Khan’s drunken driving and roadside killing. As of now, Salman Khan, balancing between public sympathy and hatred, is delaying the process of justice with a hope that he might evade it completely. As a reputed judge and author Tom Bingham said, the rule of law unfortunately is ‘hooray for my side’ for most of the people. This partisanship is often used to put pressure on the judiciary. Besides the larger issue of the prevalence of the rule of law, Salman Khan is surely a bad role model for the young motor vehicle drivers. 

Salman Khan is not the only bad role model in young people’s life. Youngsters learn most of their behaviour traits from their parents. How about parents (on motorbikes and cars) dropping kids to school by driving on the wrong side of the road? Lot of people believe that we should teach the kids traffic discipline from their childhood - catch them young! Kids learn more looking at the conduct of their parents then what they learn in the children's traffic parks. How do we expect the kids to follow traffic rules when there is a prevailing culture of casual rule breaking for the sake of little convenience? Unfortunately, this culture of casual rule breaking is considered social smartness in most cases and is further encouraged.

  

The wrongful behaviour on part of the motor vehicle drivers also emerge from their imagination of seeing themselves as 'victims' - 'what do I do when there is no provision for me!' or ‘give me more space, I am more important than others!’ When someone buys an expensive, big vehicle the feeling of victimhood doubles up - as if buying an expensive vehicle is a license to ask for more road space, free parking space and honking unnecessarily. More powerful people with their more powerful vehicles have a great sense of entitlement. When this self-assumed entitlement for unlimited road space is denied, they see themselves as victim of relentless traffic and not as equal participants in adding to the chaos. The combination of the culture of casual rule breaking and notion of ‘victimhood’ results in road rage and wrongful traffic behaviour. 

  

The statistics from the National Crime Records Bureau shows us that the bigger vehicles are responsible for larger number of road fatalities. Trucks or SUVs going at a high speed will kill more people than an auto rickshaw. With bigger vehicle comes bigger responsibility of saving other people’s life. 1.25 lakh Indians die in road traffic related crashes every year. If we are serious about reducing the road fatalities then we will not only have to make the physical infrastructure of our streets safer but also target some of these social issues - bad role models, sense of entitlement/victimhood amongst the privileged drivers and the culture of casual rule breaking. 

(11th May, 2015: DNA Ahmedabad edition, Cities Supplement, Page 5)