Chennai Traffic

Chennai Traffic!

To mitigate the traffic congestion in the City, a sum of Rs. 22.60 Crore will be spent for construction of bridges and subways during 2005-2006. It is proposed to construct 5 Railway over bridges / Railway under- bridges during the year 2005-2006 and to make Chennai City level crossing free.

This is from one of those Chennai corporations’s policy list

Traffic congestion! Every one of us has been a part of it. Several times we could have even been the originators.

Don’t worry there is neither a preaching session nor a story ahead of you.

Recently, I was caught on an interstate hold-up here in I-65 on my way down from Indianapolis. Most of the time, here in the interstate the traffic never stops, if it does, it stays for not more than few minutes. This temporary traffic congestion was due to some merging lanes and road works that broiled my 20 minutes. My furiously impatient side was irritated at the lack of control I had over the situation, while the sometimes-sensible side was adulating my evaluations on the tolerance limits. I was telling myself why in the world am I getting irritated? I can’t do anything, stay right there and wait for the traffic to move. On the other side, I was thinking if my tolerance limit was reduced by a significant margin, when compared to where it was in Chennai. Then I realized that, in Chennai, I have never waited for the traffic to let its way, unless for some unpenetratable signals or the unavoidable traffic affairs. So the fact that I am waiting illustrated the increase in threshold from where it was! Why didn’t I do this there?

It was 4 years ago, when I visited Chennai, I asked my cab driver if he could reach the destination a little faster. Witnessing his right-hand-side driving skills was the last thing I had in my mind. For few minutes, I was not even looking at the roads. The cool driver responded with a smile and asked "why I was scared even after getting used to RHS driving in the USofA?" I was not in a frame of mind to answer the question, when almost 25% of the traffic was outside the driving boundaries! I know almost all of the time I used to drive, I was a part of that 25% educated illiterates.

For the past 3 years, I have never violated the lane rule in here!

I have been married to Chennai-driving for atleast 12 years now. Even today, if I get back, I cannot even think of a life without a two-wheeler. But, the fact is I still don’t have a two wheeler driving license.

It took me a 2+ years and a brick-wall, which I ran thro, to get my license here. I postponed it purposefully, but never in those 2 and odd years had I had the intentions to even place my little one on the driver seat. Not due to the inclination factors, but the fact that I don’t have license just stopped me from touching the wheel. May be its costly affair! Neverthless, it worked. I did not touch!

Now, the question is why was I not the same there? I have never seen/followed lane driving in Chennai. I have never seen/used indicators for lane changes in Chennai. May be it’s because the people around who never followed it, motivating me to be the part of the ugly mess. But if you see, to someone else you are one of the people around, and if we follow a rule, may be it will motivate another to do so and henceforth we might create something out of just being ourselves. Even here I break the rules sometimes, have had a couple of speeding tickets. But the frequency is comparitvely low, may be its the traffic patrol or my delta age factor.

Claim whatever you want! I can see people cribbing against all those public transportation people, enormous increase in spending power and access to vehicles, which was once a luxury, very little improvement on the road patterns/traffic rules etc. I am sure that this cribbing world will definitely approve that half of the traffic congestion problem would be resolved if everyone follows the city rules! It takes just the brains to understand but it’s the guts that will make you do it.

It is certainly not easy to be the odd person and follow the rules! May be its home and we tend to be ourselves (!) there. But when I hear numbers like 22.60 Crore that is being spent on solving traffic congestions, which would be easily done if everyone follows the rule; I hate to say I broke the law and was not a part of the few who followed it.