Lost in Traffic...

One hand on horn, one hand greeting, one ear on cell-phone, one ear listening to loud music, Foot on accelerator, Eyes on female pedestrians, Welcome to India! This the way the people drive in India, is it the only reason behind all the traffic problems or accidents? There is something more, I have something to say about this. This is a very common problem in b'lore and everyone has their own opinion and frustration level about it. And this article is not meant for your entertainment, but to put out my frustration, the words used may look a bit offensive for some people, take it easy as it's not meant to hurt anyone's feelings or emotions. This is the warning hereby to say that its not for entertainment, Even then if you have some time and want to go through, you are welcome, and no comments entertained except for the incidents happened with you, if you want to share it with others. Please go on… Please go on…

I hope many of you must be having idea about the roads in Germany or US, and must have seen it also. First impression about them is always "Roads are very good". If I speak a bit more of how good they are, I should say, "It's made so neat, without any potholes, with proper markings for the driving, and the finishing of the road". Here what I mean by finishing is the way the foot paths are built, they are wider enough for people to walk and they are separated from the roads with a strip of green grass wherever possible, else, they are slightly elevated from the roads so that people know that they are into roads if by chance they get down to road from the foot path.

You may be wondering why I am telling all this things here. The reason behind this is trying to answer the question, in most of us, who live in a metro like b'lore. The above explanation is a pre-requisite to understand the things below. :)

First of all let me tell you the question!! The question is, why are we struggling in the traffic everyday, no matter whether you are going by bike, car or even by walk..!! The basic reason everyone know is that there's lot of vehicles, but in most of the cases this is not the case, see the picture I have put up here, do u think it’s a healthy situation? Its 100% not because of lot of vehicles as you clearly see that there are hardly few vehicles.

Then what is the reason, some one might come up and say now that its because of lack of "road sense" or "driving manners", may be this is true to some extent. I have faced many situations where people do not have "road sense" or "driving sense", I have seen this mostly in people who drive autos and bike. In Auto's it happens because most of the auto drivers in b'lore drive auto on rent, thus they do not bother about the vehicle which is not theirs, while bike people think that their vehicle is small and if I get out of this block now, I can go fast, and the car in front of me is the only guy blocking me from going.!!. But the car fellow who had used the bike before wonders why this guy is in such a hurry when everyone else is going in peace...!!

A few days back one fellow was trying to overtake me from left!! that too in a turning near DRDO township. He must be expert in Mathematics!! He predicted some junk radius of curvature for my turn, and tried to push his "Hamara Bajaj" in the gap!! but then I had too take a deep turn, so as not to hit someone coming from front, which made this poor fellow loose control and he almost hit my car from side, but to my fortune, he only touched my vehicle and his Bajaj did not touch my car. Else it would have cost me a lot to recover. This happened when I was coming back home at 9.00 after my car service in the night. Traffic was not much, and still the “Bajajwala” felt that he had to rush from left to reach home early to see his wife a few mins before! :)

And this is not the first time, its happening, A few days back, I was overtaking a bike, and he is supposed to slowdown once I start over taking. But he thinks he is in some racing and he did not want to get defeated!! thus he tried to come parallel to me, I dint know this, but when a car came in that congested road I took left as we usually do, this “Bikewala” did not have any place to ride!! He lost control and he fell down. I first thought that he hit my car and made some scratches, I did not stop as it always makes problem more complicated. I reached home, and still I was thinking about him for quite sometime. I was worried if he was wearing the helmet or not, for which actually they do not worry! He may not have got injured much, but he learnt a lesson that he should not overtake from left anytime, and others are not responsible for anything, incase if something goes wrong. I guess never ever he will overtake from left from now on. ha ha..

Every one thinks that, he is personally best driver and that rest all are bad. So you can't say that someone does not have this road sense. You take someone to Germany and ask him to drive; he will drive better than a German guy. But he may be missing that politeness of giving way to the pedestrians!!

So what’s basically the cause for traffic is the way roads have been built! And note here that the traffic congestion only is because of this and not the accidents caused! The accidents caused are because of the people who want to hurry up some how, god knows for what reason they want to save those 2-3 mins, taking risk of their life.

The main reason for the infrastructure being poor is not because of lack of money for these projects, but because the tenders have been given to people/companies who does not know the "International Safety norms of roads" when executing a project. All they do is just lay tar strip to make the road look black for sometime. No quality, no foot-paths, no finishing! At the end the road looks like, a typical Indian city road shown in the figure and making life more hectic. To add to this, people put their "cart shop" on the road, and people cover up this shop for purchase, to make the available roads still smaller, and make others life more and more hectic. They do not have any consideration to others; all they bother is their business!!

I am lost in this traffic and sometimes I think why the hell I am in b’lore?

You can comment and try to get out of your frustration also!!! :).