The city diaries 3: Spare the kids!
In my last blog post I tried to explain how difficult it is to drive on Bangalore roads, mostly because of the attitude of drivers and riders, along with the ongoing construction works. On the brighter side, I observe some sensibility is still prevailing among approximately 60% of private car owners and among 10% of the public transport vehicle drivers, which is a relief. However the root cause is lack of traffic awareness and taking safety on roads for granted. In simpler terms, a vehicle will not slow down at intersection thinking that the vehicle coming from the small road should slow down, and simultaneously the same thought process is happening with vehicle's driver coming from the small road too. Fortunate that we do not have accidents proportional to the number of fools on the road.
One point I missed out when I was writing about the traffic problems turned out to be one of the most important issues, the kids. They just started living their life and they live according to a lot of people's whims and fancies, including the parents, teachers and, worst, the drivers who take them to school everyday. As obvious, they do not care about the signals or fellow drivers/riders on the road, thereby setting a bad example for the kids.
Besides the everyday traffic offences of these van/auto rickshaw drivers, safety of the kids is the biggest concern. Everyday, I see more than one instances of kids are being forced to travel unsafely in Maruti Omni vans and in auto rickshaws, without any security measures and suffocated. If it's an Omni, 10 to 15 kids are stuffed in to an old van with a passenger capacity of six and if it's an auto, the sight of kids bulging out of the auto, along with their bags, is terrifying.
Who are the culprits? We all are. The parents who send their kids with this rash drivers without any second thought, the drivers who care only about money, the school authorities who think that their responsibility starts only when the kids enter the school compound, the road transport authorities who allow white board vehicles to have dual personality of school buses, the traffic police who mostly ignore this and everyone of us, who see it, exclaims and leave it at that. I understand that it's too early in the morning for the traffic police to track these vehicles and hence the denial to cooperate with the drivers should come from the parents and the schools first.
The only hope for tomorrow are the children, don't risk their lives.
One point I missed out when I was writing about the traffic problems turned out to be one of the most important issues, the kids. They just started living their life and they live according to a lot of people's whims and fancies, including the parents, teachers and, worst, the drivers who take them to school everyday. As obvious, they do not care about the signals or fellow drivers/riders on the road, thereby setting a bad example for the kids.
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| This image depicts the plight of kids (Uploaded on the FB page of Bangalore traffic police by Sanjay Neogi ) |
Who are the culprits? We all are. The parents who send their kids with this rash drivers without any second thought, the drivers who care only about money, the school authorities who think that their responsibility starts only when the kids enter the school compound, the road transport authorities who allow white board vehicles to have dual personality of school buses, the traffic police who mostly ignore this and everyone of us, who see it, exclaims and leave it at that. I understand that it's too early in the morning for the traffic police to track these vehicles and hence the denial to cooperate with the drivers should come from the parents and the schools first.
The only hope for tomorrow are the children, don't risk their lives.
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