Road congestion. Traffic jams. Chaos on roads. Traffic gridlock. These are common parlance among Bengalureans. These are attributed to poor road design, shoddy road works, incomplete projects left unattended… the list goes on and on. The blame is invariably heaped on the government departments, particularly the transport and the traffic police departments, besides the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Bangalore Water Supply & Sewerage Board (BWSSB), the Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (BESCOM) — all picked for the choicest of criticisms for anything and everything going wrong on Bengaluru roads. It is never the fault of the motorists.
If the problem is scrutinized closely, one is bound to find that the main culprits in causing traffic jams are the motorists themselves — the very segment which criticizes the government for it.
Plain observation of how traffic moves and motorists’ behaviour in the state capital of Bengaluru, could convince the observers about the role played by the motorists in causing traffic jams. And yet, the government agencies are blamed. The best and deserved description for Bengaluru motorists, is the popular Kannada saying: “Kuniyakke barallaandre nela donku” (“If you don’t know how to dance, you blame the floor to be uneven”).
Most motorists, despite being armed with legal driving licences, have no clue what driving is about, and that is the main cause for all the traffic woes in Bengaluru. The city, with a human population of about 1.2 crore, has 1,11,95,222 (almost 1.12 crore) vehicles. That is 36.67% of the total vehicle population of Karnataka (3,05,28,518) as of August 31, according to transport department data.
Driving in Bengaluru boils down to clash of egos rather than travelling from point A to B in a disciplined manner. It is all about “who is better?”, “who reaches first?”, “Who is the fastest?”, or “How many vehicles are overtaken?” — a recipe for road rage, a contributor to traffic obstruction.
Driving is not merely about releasing the clutch while pressing the accelerator to get the desired result of the vehicle thrusting forward. It is not about how fast one can drive on the roads. Driving is about motorists ensuring zero-contribution to traffic jams while in control of their vehicles. It’s about how lanes are used in a disciplined manner to allow faster vehicles to overtake from the left, while slower ones are to be overtaken from their right. It is not about parking a vehicle wherever space is available. It is about ensuring free passageways to ensure smoother flow of traffic. Driving is about patience while following the vehicle in front, not suddenly overtaking to be ahead of the queue to be the first to clear the ‘green’ signal at a junction.
Obtaining a driver’s licence is not a grant of freedom (converted into a right) to floor the accelerator and forget that ‘brakes’ ever existed in the driving vocabulary and practice. There are no rights to create traffic jams, no freedom either. It is a duty to prevent one.
It is important to understand that the white/yellow lines drawn on the roads are not mere designs (it’s definitely not ‘rangoli’) for regaling our visual senses, but to inform motorists in which lane they should be, and at what speed. Where they don’t exist, fair road judgement is needed to remain safely in line of moving traffic.
On Wednesday, moderate rainfall in Mahadevapura zone was enough to cause heavy traffic jams due to slow-moving traffic on Outer Ring Road and Arterial Ring Road. Water-logging, processions heading for Ganesha immersions and a long weekend saw many heading out of town, adding to the traffic woes.
Like always, people cursed the government departments for not doing their job. A close look would have revealed who was at fault.
But if we have to resort to our pet habit of blaming government departments, it should be for turning a blind eye to motorists being the prime accused in contributing to traffic jams and gridlocks almost on a daily basis. They deserve blame for lack of strict enforcement and imposing steep penalties that can deter and turn the errant city motorists towards more disciplined ways of using the city roads.