Digital challans are fine, but what traffic rules are you enforcing?

The Integrated Command and Control Centre under the aegis of Smart City Bhopal is decidedly a great initiative. Its range of services is impressive and will no doubt help in several momentous ways. On traffic management part of the range of services, it is music to our ears that it aims at improving traffic flow using intelligent signals and keeping commuters informed on the status of public transport in near-real time. Yet, it seems like touching a motley of transgressions, e.g. running the red lights, disregarding zebra crossings, and some more. That is rather a small part of the enforcement domain, which, in itself, is only one of the three interacting disciplines. All three, i.e. education, engineering and enforcement have to go hand-in-hand to see some sanity on the roads. The most intractable of these three is education, because it involves lakhs of drivers and would-be drivers. Not only that, it involves educating the traffic policemen who, beyond the simplistic ones, know precious little about the rules. Providing any advisory on safe driving practices is of course a far cry.   

Say, what should I do if I am trapped behind a slow-moving school bus? Should I overtake it? Or, is it against the law? And then, what should I do if the school bus has stopped on the side and children are alighting or getting off? Does the law require I stop? I had no such information given to me and I already hold a driving license. I could face a traffic policeman reprimanding me, but the chances are it won’t happen. My savior is the fact is that the cop either doesn’t know it as an offence. Other possibility is that he cares a hoot unless he figures he can extract some cash he doesn’t have to disclose to his enquiring wife.

The traffic rules of the Motor Vehicles Act 1988 are enshrined in a substantial and forbiddingly bulky set of books seen only on lawyers’ bookshelves. Even if you are able to lay your hands on that epic, nobody in his right mind can expect you to read it through and survive the ordeal. We know there are ways to abridge that wisdom in a 20-page booklet, which is all that aspirant drivers need to assimilate and abide by. That much education is the minimum one must acquire before taking the sit-in examination at the office of local motor vehicles department. Little is known to common man whether a booklet like that exists and nobody tells him whether its reading is a prerequisite.

Where from would you know then that there is something like ‘right of way’ that is at the core of creating order on roads? I mean it is simple that if I am driving along a straight road and there are no ‘Stop’ signs, those trying to come on it from smaller side-lanes have to stop for me; I have the right of way, they don’t. I will not even slow down; I will go. And if you have been under the impression that coming in from a small road on my left you can merrily come on the road, expecting me to slow down and accommodate you, you are dead wrong. I will hit you, and I am within my rights to do that.  

Then, if it’s a roundabout that doesn’t have signals, I have to stop for the traffic coming in from my right hand side, because traffic on the right side has the right of way.

The battle of nerves that is played out at that roundabout would be comical, if it weren’t so dangerous. What happens is that I nose in some, look to my left, look to my right, and I nose in some more. The driver on my right is more daring; he moves forward with purposeful determination looking at me with disdain. I lose nerve and slow down lest I should hit him. Then there is a truck coming in from left; that driver presses his accelerator while his clutch is still half-way pressed in, makes his engine roar, clearly messaging all and sundry that he is not about to be cowed down. I chicken out and stop dead. The vehicle on my right, who had till then found me easy to deal with, has now met with a bigger adversary who has obviously experienced many a mayhem on the roads. He stops too, his fender inches away from mine. The truck wins. It passes the roundabout first. The driver with that disdainful look passes next. I am obviously the last.

The point I make is that this “give way to the traffic on your right” is the gospel that prevents anarchy on roads. It is sadly not known even to the hallowed law enforcers. Smart traffic management with a bit of enforcement and a bit of engineering is going to address only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

Education is the key. It needs to be taken up with a sense of urgency for school children in middle and secondary levels either as a part of a subject named ‘Civic Sense’ or a stand-alone discipline; the key is that marks obtained be included in the final grade. There have to be well-designed refresher booklets followed by re-examination for license holders at the time of renewals of licenses. Above all, traffic police needs to know what the rules are and what they should be doing to implement those in the field. We are in dire need of looking like a civilized nation.