Friday, September 29, 2006

Chennai Traffic Police and Roads: Why do Indians never learn?

Just a few days ago, I wrote about the death at dawn of an unknown motorcyclist at the junction of Inner Ring Road (Jawaharlal Nehru Salai) and Ashok Nagar Police Station Road.

I had called up the police control room and complained about the lack of supervision at 6 in the morning, when motorists are possibly at their worst behaviour.

Today, I was again passing through the same roads and found that traffic lights at the following junctions were simply ignored by the motorists:

  • Ashok Nagar Police Station - Ashok Pillar Road
  • Inner Ring Road - Ashok Nagar Police Station Road
  • Inner Ring Road - Jawahar Vidyalaya point

    Trucks, omnibuses and Metropolitan Transport Corporation buses threatened to run over people and ram into vehicles that took care to follow the lights, precisely at the same point where just a few days ago, one man had died.

    I have been asking the following simple question to anyone willing to listen in the police establishment: if you have no intention to enforce the traffic signals, why do you switch them on early in the morning in the first place?

    Don't the Police realise that it is better to tell motorists to "negotiate" carefully, rather than ask them to obey traffic lights? Otherwise, rogue drivers will not bother to stop at red lights and, as they have done in many instances, ram into you from behind?

    It is horrifying that the average citizen is at the mercy of a system that is both completely non-functional and, for the most part, hopelessly corrupt.
  • Tuesday, September 26, 2006

    YouTube videos on Indian roads

    I just saw that Paul Barter has excellent links to videos about traffic in South Asia and India in particular, on his blog.

    It is worth looking at the impact of automobile dependence and absolutely, totally ignorant policymaking in India. Great stuff for those who may be visiting India. This is something that adds nicely to Google Earth. You know that when you land in those places shown in the maps, this is the terror that awaits you!
    No "glocal" city

    Chennai, like many other Indian cities, is going global. I am provoked to provide this cliched view of a city (that has had a rather long international association from the days of the somewhat disreputable Robert Clive) because there is now a visible post-independence population of "foreigners" here, all of whom have to literally breathe the local air, join the powerless pedestrians, use the roads, weave past obstacles and generally avoid being run over.

    There are many who have to put up only with item number one. That is the air. Everything else one can buy in a "cleaned up" form.

    This is something of an irony for the Hyundais, the Mitsubishis, the Fords, the Suzukis, the Fiats, Mercedes, BMW, Audi (and any other automobile company that will come to India), because they are all eagerly setting up automobile plants. These companies achieve the depressingly negative outcome of adding to global warming and reducing, ironically, the level of mobility in the city by crowding out cyclists and buses, while promoting gridlock.

    To that list of course, one must add the local manufacturers of cars (Tatas...) and motorised scooters and bikes a few hundred of which hit the city roads everyday.

    On Monday, I just missed taking a picture of a group of people of African origin being escorted across the road by an autorickshaw driver. It was a funny scene. The auto man had his hand raised in a gesture of helpless pleading as the flock of ageing visitors followed him. Everyone was nervous in the group. Not without reason, because motorists are usually impatient on the somewhat wide road with the red lights. Pedestrian crossings are usually ignored and there are no major subways available for several kilometres (between LIC and, say, Safire). This scene at the Spencer's Junction on Anna Salai (the famous Mount Road of yore) is, incidentally, supposed to be monitored by police closed circuit satellite television! Take it from me, it is money down the drain. The system does not work.

    This is just my point. This city of flashy cars and discotheques is hopelessly barbaric when it comes to the roads. Yet, few businesses that set up here appear concerned about their impacts on the already deteriorating quality of life. I am not asking for their understanding. I am demanding that they realise social responsibility. I am not also xenophobic. It is just that we have a lot of problems from ignorant, unregulated, corrupt, unaccountable and completely greedy domestic businesses. We don't need further input of irresponsible capital powered by the deliberately weak state of the rupee and the seemingly insatiable appetite of Indian consumers to add to the chaos.
    Interesting perspective

    Fellow resident Scott Carney has a blog with a post on the state of chennai traffic, which I find has some interesting views. He is off the mark when it comes to some facts, starting with how much traffic police make (legally). Gone are the days when traffic policemen were paid less than a thousand rupees a month. Anyway, here is his take on some of the madness. Scott Carney Online

    Saturday, September 23, 2006

    A Death

    On Saturday morning, what I had feared for long ultimately happened. At the junction of the chaotic Inner Ring Road and 11th avenue Ashok Nagar (leading from the local police station), a man lay dead.

    He was a two-wheeler rider, one more added to the statistics of vulnerable road users who could not survive India's rapid slide into automobilisation and vehicle dependence. His body lay on the road, with policemen who had appeared in strength after the accident (road rules are not otherwise enforced on this busy road that caters to all of the traffic including thousands of buses and often trucks going from south to north).

    Paul Barter, the sustainable transport campaigner and researcher whom I have met in Kuala Lumpur used to say that if you know the cause of something, it is not an accident any longer.

    We know what killed the motorcyclist on Saturday morning. It was a combination of ignorance, indifference, lack of enforcement and finally, the rising tide of automobilisation in India.

    The response of authority was revealing. A policeman on the scene was irritated with my questions. I asked, "Of what use is it for you all to be present after someone is dead?"

    "The fellow was in the wrong....(expletive deleted)"

    The Hindu, the most respected newspaper in the city did not report this accident (though its City Editor was informed about it).

    Then again, for an idea of the kind of police that manages India, look at this image. The policeman is no better than the person to his left, standing in the fading zebra lines earmarked for the pedestrian!

    these are the enforcers!

    We stupid Indians...we will follow rules in Dubai, in Singapore, in the US and in London. Right here, where we live, where our kith and kin are exposed to danger on the road everyday, we are a hopelessly indisciplined lot. Is it any wonder that at least 80,000 of us will die in 2007 in road crashes and millions of us will nurse injuries sustained on the road?

    Tuesday, September 19, 2006

    Lalu Prasad and the Railway

    This is an image change that qualifies for serious study. In the popular imagination, often embellished by media images, Lalu Prasad the politician is often laughed at for his "rustic" persona. Now Railway Minister Lalu has gone to the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad to talk about the turnaround of the Indian Railway.

    If commanders hold the key to the victories of armies, Lalu must certainly be commended for the book profits that the Railways have shown in the past year. It is of course, another matter that the Indian Railway -- even with an impressive record of moving millions -- is far from perfect. I have carried several pictures in the other posts on this.

    But without pessimism or cynicism, let us hope that Lalu will preside over an administration that will professionalise and modernise the railways and attract more people to undertake train travel. That he will provide the ageing and antiquated suburban railway stations of Chennai with escalators, lifts, clean entrances, eating places, ticketing booths, park and ride centres, information systems on train shedules, routes and system maps.

    Lalu's speech in Parliament on the Railways, during the budget presentation is worth reading, in the light of the kudos he is now receiving. It is found here.