The Hindu : Crazy motorists, crazier cops

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 28, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Kerala-Thiruvananthapuram

Crazy motorists, crazier cops

By K.M. Tampi

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM April 27. Every place has its due share of freaky road users and freakier law enforcers. But nowhere do the freaks consist of the brute majority and the law abiders the fringe groups as they are in Kerala.

In God's Own Country, most of the motorists are crazy, the pedestrians crazier and the police the craziest. The craziness of the motorists start with the starting of the car. Most of them believe in `jump take off' whether it is from home, on to the road or from the kerb to the street. If it is from the kerb, the vehicle is almost always parked right under the `No parking' sign. They do no believe in alerting the oncoming driver of their intention to enter a lane. That is something infra dig to them. The ultimate result is the breaking of three or four rules and utter confusion. . If it is a busy street, the cascading effect snarls vehicular traffic all the way down.

If contrary to the scene described above, a law abiding motorist tries to ease his car, after showing the signal, gently on to the street from home or the kerb, the oncoming vehicles will never allow him to enter the lane. He has to wait for a gap to develop. God help him if he has to cut across the road. The oncoming traffic especially autorickshaws will take a sharp turn right in front of the vehicle and keep moving, believe it or not, along the wrong side of the road. It is the let-him-enter- the-lane-after-me syndrome. The oncoming motorists will go to any extent like the blocking of a long stream of vehicles coming from the opposite direction by muscling onto their lane in order to prevent the vehicle from cutting across the road before they pass. Ego of the giant variety is partially responsible for it. The general impression is that it will lower your dignity if you let him cross the road before you pass. The driver behind also thinks in the same manner. Finally it is when God decrees, ``Let there be a gap'' that an opening develops and you are able to move along it to the other side of the road.

It is probably because of this law-abider-go-to-hell attitude that most of the drivers have turned aggressive, even law-breakers. It is the system in force in the State, which makes the most suave gentleman behave like a third rate bully and bare his fangs on the road.

Once our gentleman enters the lane and starts cruising, he is a law unto himself. If he is in a speeding mood, he will not let anyone overtake him even if the vehicle behind is a fire engine rushing to the scene of a mishap. He crowds other vehicles especially three and two-wheelers off the road and at times on to the gutter without a second thought.

If he sees an elderly person, woman or child crossing the road along the zebra crossing he will increase his speed. Call him not a sadist for it for it is too light a word. As far as possible he tries to jump signals and if he cannot, stops plumb in the middle of the zebra crossing making the pedestrian zigzag to cross the road.

The authorities have forbidden air horn and hi-beam in the cities. But believe it or not, many motorists driving on low beam turn it to high the moment they see another vehicle when it should be the other way round. If somebody subjects this behaviour to a serious study, it might lead to some interesting findings.

If you dare to call the motorist a sinner because of these, the pedestrian is as free of any sin as a new born babe in spite of a whole repertoire of derring-do which he indulges in. The absence of sidewalks or footpaths is stated to be responsible for all the problems which he creates. There are footpaths in some places but many of them are occupied by hawkers, evicting whom can shake the Government to its very foundations if not pull it down altogether in a politically hyperconscious State like Kerala. Some other footpaths double as public toilets. Even in places where the sidewalks are free and clean, few pedestrians use them. They seem to prefer pirouetting around the vehicles. In any other place, they could be booked for jay walking. Some people feel that walking along the road is their right. They probably do not think as to what will happen if by that same standard the motorist chose to drive along the footpath.

The greatest feat of the pedestrians in Kerala is to wave the oncoming speeding vehicle to a halt and cross the road when and where they like without a second thought. They do not hesitate to do this even when the signal light shows red for the pedestrians and green for the vehicle little realising the danger involved leave alone the inconvenience to the motorist who has to wait asking himself ad nauseum like the simpleton in the ad `Mera number kab ayega'. The disturbing thing is that even children have started emulating this method.

It is in between these two major factors of road traffic that the smaller vehicles ply. They start with the bicycles which trapeze along at times carrying very heavy loads like the ant bearing the carcass of a grasshopper or a dragon fly several times its size.

The noisy, over-speeding and zigzagging two wheelers particularly the motorcycles are the bete noires of all road-users. Then come the autorickshaws who are a law unto themselves. You find slogans highlighting philosophy of the loftiest type written on the vehicles. But if you get into a scrap with their drivers, they will redefine lowliness for you.

It is quite natural for the force which lords over such a set up to be a bit wacky.

Its own actions and inactions are responsible for getting itself placed in the higher category of wackier.

They include apart from the little it is doing to bring some order to the chaotic set up, its scant disregard for law and rules. None of the traffic rules on overtaking, over-speeding, no parking and one-way lane to mention a few seem to be applicable to it. If someone dares to question, he is showered with choicest abuse from the police dictionary compiled by old linguists in the force or slapped with a ticket for an offence which he did not commit. In the good old days when the signal lights were manually controlled as the flow of vehicles was not even from all the roads, these gentlemen had the audacity to stop a long line of vehicles from one road, to allow the stray car of a Minister to cross over from another.

The situation is not very different now. The only relief is that the motorists get the police they deserve and the other way round.

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