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!



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?