Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
Rules for fools
|
Will a day’s obedience to traffic rules make a difference?
|
No brakes Traffic violations don’t fit a behavioural pattern
At the curve of the road in Mettuguda leading to Secunderabad station, a man has fallen under a RTC bus. The air smells of burning tyre and metal and people muffle their noses against the foul smell and try to find what happened. The traffic has backed up right up to the Tarnaka flyover. A 108 ambulance with wailing siren is coming from the Lalaguda side but the road towards Tarnaka is clear. Did the Hyderabadi stop for the ambulance to reach the man? Nah. He crossed the road and zipped away.
Callous? Indifferent? Ignorant? Rebelliousness? Call it what you may, but would a single day obeying of traffic rules make a difference where rules are broken with impunity.
Today, between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. and between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m., the city police want to take the aid of NGOs to display posters, banners and placards. On April Fool’s Day it is really fits into the scheme of things. But will it work?
Psychologist Shakila M. Naidu doesn’t have much hope: “A single day’s obedience will not make a different but at least people become aware of the rules. People giving roses is a smart way to make drivers aware of their folly,” she says. “Traffic violations don’t fit into a behavioural disorder pattern, but there are personality types who rebel against authority and systems. There are people who break queues the same personality factor is involved when people break traffic rules wilfully,” she says.
“It is not traffic, it is aggression by a different name. I have driven my car in other cities including Delhi, but nowhere did I feel so threatened and insecure as in Hyderabad. Unless there are more police constables on the road, not standing in the shade or chatting on the cellphone but in the thick of action who send the challans home instead of chatting on the side, the situation is unlikely to improve,” says Manjiri Sinha, a school teacher.
SERISH NANISETTI
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
|
