Traffic and fish buying

Some months ago the police ran a campaign to teach operators of motor vehicles to lower their headlamps so as not to blind reciprocal traff...

Some months ago the police ran a campaign to teach operators of motor vehicles to lower their headlamps so as not to blind reciprocal traffic. Fines were imposed and the effect was salutary. Soon, though, things were back to “normal” and drivers were again using high beams at all times. The traffic police too stopped treating high beams as an offence.

Of late, I have rarely ventured out on my scooter without facing inconvenience — or, more often, real danger — from the thoughtless actions of others on the roads. These are not highways but neighbourhood roads where vehicles do not, or should not, travel at speed. Among the greatest dangers are parked vehicles which surge forward just when another vehicle comes up from behind — or when it has actually come abreast. Few drivers use their rear-view mirrors; and the riders of two-wheelers evidently believe that looking back will cause irreparable damage to their necks. For the Lords of the Road, the auto-rickshaws, thought has never been a consideration.

When I first drove in England a third of a century ago, a companion had to make me aware of the line painted across a side road where it met a larger one. I learnt it was obligatory for a vehicle to come to a complete stop at that line, even if no traffic was visible on the larger road. In our proud capital city, many drivers do not even slow down when joining other roads. The vehicles on those roads must jam on their brakes to avert collisions.

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But then many Indians do not like to use brakes, presumably on the ground that brakes impede progress. They would much rather swerve, even if swerving means they come in the way of others. They must also swerve around the smallest pot-holes even though their vehicles are fitted with spring suspensions designed precisely to cope with bumps.

Going out on our roads is a grilling test of physical agility, of the speed of our reflexes. No one thinks of the effect on our nervous systems. No one stops to consider that drivers who reach their destinations without having to perform acrobatics, without experiencing narrow escapes, without being assaulted by constant horn blowing, are far more likely to arrive with nerves not frazzled and tempers not on edge.

Until quite recently, relatively few people had motor vehicles and were therefore not difficult to identify. The roads were less congested and drivers behaved themselves because they feared not just the police but also the criticism of other drivers. In the space of some 15 years the numbers of motor vehicles have grown to be far more than the roads and the police can handle. Above all, the hordes of new drivers are taught nearly nothing, neither the lowering of headlamp beams nor the function of the lanes which they jump with such abandon, unconcerned about the chaos they cause.

A driver’s licence is purchased, after all, not earned after passing a test. Which seller of fish asks for proof of a buyer’s ability to eat it?