Hyundai cars as coffins - in a rain, a Santro can kill you!

Hello,I am back after a short visit to the UK, and as you can imagine, with a lot of new perspectives on why Chennai has among the worst roads anywhere.

Of course, the 'top' issue being discussed about Chennai's roads is the death of three people in a Hyundai Santro car during the intense rain that hit the city on Saturday (October 28) night.

It did not help any of the lakhs of motorists (or pedestrians) on that dark and rainy night that the police in chennai had 100 new cars donated by the same company whose Santro turned into a coffin for three people.

So why do people in Santro cars caught in heavy rain end up suffocating to death? Read the Times of India's report on the incident in Chennai here.

A search on the Internet reveals that the Chennai incident was not the first. It happened almost in identical fashion -- in a Santro -- in Mumbai in 2005.

Today's The Hindu has a report on how this sort of thing apparently happens. But the report does not deal with the impact of the jamming of the central locking on those who were trapped. What role did this play in causing the deaths?

This question is important because Hyundai has a duty to explain to its tens of thousands of customers, what it did after the Mumbai deaths, to determine the cause of the technical problem. Did Hyundai fix the problem in subsequent production of Santro? Why has it not ordered a recall of all Santros fitted with similar locks to assess whether they need to be changed or repaired?

Okay, even if this is too much to ask in a third world country with a significant number of corrupt politicians, bureaucrats and policemen, why has not Hyundai advertised an emergency number for its car owners, which will provide help if they are stranded?

And what is the Government in this Detroit of India doing for the vast number of people who have purchased cars?

Why is the Automobile Association of Southern India not coming up with some kind of response to such a tragedy?

Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Maddox and India's autorickshaw

The ubiquitous three-wheeled autorickshaw generally runs riot on India's urban and semi-urban landscape. This poorly-engineered ramshackle contraption which serves a small purpose as a feeder transport in most places has again shot to global fame as Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's runabout in Pune.

See the picture of Brad Pitt looking out of an autorickshaw here.

Many will remember the crazy scenes from the James Bond film Octopussy in which Vijay Amritraj drives an autorickshaw (specially engineered for the venture) like a bat out of hell ferrying Roger Moore.

A rather longish treatment of autorickshaws is available here on Wikipedia.

On Chennai Roads, though, the story of autorickshaws is not so much fun. Many passengers lose their limbs, some die and others suffer minor injuries each day, as the yellow three-wheelers race along city roads. All passengers are fleeced by market forces because there are not enough buses and trains for passengers.

Wrong Idea

Surf blogs a bit to see what there is about Chennai, and you come across something like this. Someone has suggested the banning of autorickshaws in Chennai because they are a traffic nuisance.

This is exactly the sentiment that has driven Chennai's traffic insane. People imagine that if we sell more cars and two-wheelers (which you would have to completely depend on if autorickshaws were off the scene) the road scenario will get better! Nothing can be farther from the truth. The sensible thing to do would be to ensure that autorickshaws operate safely and abide by the law, and to increase the number of buses.

Fellow blogger Vasudevan Deepak Kumar is totally out of depth here.

A law unto themselves

Let me begin this post by saying that I am completely in favour of buses. They hold the key to making our lives sustainable and they reduce our dependence on costly personal ways to get around town.

But what I find completely unacceptable is the manner in which the buses are driven in India. As someone who has lived in this country for four decades and more, I am familiar with the ways of our people. The bigger guy gets the right of way. The little guy who uses the road does not have a voice. He represents only the fare, if he chooses to use the bus. The question of buses existing for mobility of people is forgotten.

That is the kind of arrogance that one comes across in Chennai. Look at the Metropolitan Transport Corporation bus blocking off the pedestrian corssing in this scene at Periyar Bridge intersection on Anna Salai. There are at least three policemen here on duty all the time. Not one would care to even question such bus drivers. Finally, when government-run buses don't care for the law, will others feel compelled to? You can also see the faded zebra crossing lines in this picture.

Chennai : An early morning scene

The first hour in the morning (around 6 am) is generally fraught with danger on the city roads. Today, I found that a lorry carrying bottled water had crashed into a street lamp near the Udhayam Theatre in Ashok Nagar. The area was strewn with glass and plastic, and the mangled lamp post blocked part of the road. I wonder whether the driver was drunk or sleepy?

Further towards Kodambakkam, I took a picture of the road intersection just outside the Ashok Nagar police station. As you can see, there is no police presence and great caution is necessary in crossing the road. The fading "zebra crossing" markings are of little help, and the traffic signal, even less. It is extremely dangerous to imagine that motorists will obey rules at such intersections. Whether they are government buses, tourist taxis or private cars, most don't care about the traffic lights. So watch out!

Fatal tracks

Safety is not one of the strongpoints of people in the Indian subcontinent. How else can one explain the unconcern about a large number of people dying in avoidable circumstances on railway tracks?

The general public view is that the railway stations in India have facilities that are hostile to pedestrians, and hence it is acceptable to take risks -- such as crossing over on tracks, rather than use an overbridge.

One cannot quarrel with the view of the commuters on the nature of facilities, but the risks can sometimes be too extreme. Today's The Hindu carries the report of three people getting killed in the suburbs, trying to cross the railway track.

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.

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

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?

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.

Music on the move

It is no exaggeration that a ride on a train in this country will provide an interesting glimpse of the diversity of its social life.

On a suburban train, one can see those who have been generally failed by the Indian welfare system, starting with blind people trying to sell cheap plasticky stuff to earn a living, fruit vendors, mendicants, street performers and vagabonds.

I saw this girl with a slightly older boy and a woman, presumably all from the same family, performing minor contortionist tricks on the train. The boy and girl danced briefly to the beating of a drum by the woman, then wriggled through tight metal rings, before seeking alms from the passengers. After their first act, the children were fascinated by the sight of another train moving in the same direction on the adjacent track, its horn loudly blaring. They smiled at each other and momentarily suspended their circus.



To the credit of most people, they parted with at least 50 paise, and I was quite sure that if this troupe could carry on with its act regularly (though that would be possible only until the kids remained 'small') they would at least stave off hunger.

A information entrepreneur

It was funny to read in The Hindu the other day, that Chennai's monopoly bus operator, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation does not have a printed bus guide.

It was funny because the MTC many years ago produced not just a guide giving route information, but even a good system map. It appears that as technology advances, policy regresses and a well-run transport network has gone to seed.

Back to the question of travel and transit guides, I found an entrepreneur on board a Tambaram - Beach suburban train selling an interesting pocket guide for the wholly affordable price of three rupees. Besides a set of time-tables for the suburban rail system, it has details of the State Express Transport Corporation bus services, emergency phone lines for hospitals, 24-hour pharmacies and call taxi companies.

The guide contains the following address: English Tamil Publications, 29.81, Red Hills Road, Opposite Gupta Convent, Villivakkam, Chennai 49. Phone: (044) 2617 4439.

This nifty guide suggests that it would make an ideal hand-out for trade unions, film fan associations, political parties, residents welfare associations and so on. I completely endorse the value of such a publication.

Stone surprise

It is intriguing that the passage leading to the Kodambakkam suburban railway platforms presents a solid concrete stone bang in the centre. They are puzzled because the stone serves no apparent purpose.

Remember that at dusk, this passage is plunged in darkness and unless you are a regular commuter, you may not be able to spot this stone. The results of such failure are all too imaginable.

In the background is the staircase leading to the platforms. More about that later. I am riding a lot of trains these days and have come to call these staircases the "42 steps."

Here are a few pictures from the past couple of days. This is what Chennai's suburban railway looks like. More to come, of course.

A three car train that runs between Thirumailai (Mylapore) and Chennai Beach:

The new train information system installed with the sign "on trial" at Kodambakkam station. It did not appear to be too accurate and as you can see, there is no clock in the board itself. You would have walk further on the same platform to spot the clock! If this system had been electronic (as it is in airports and even some major Indian railway stations) many display terminals could be connected to show the same information. So why is the wheel being reinvented?

The inside of some of the more recently introduced trains on the Chennai suburban railway looks like this. Considering the ramshackle past, this is welcome, but it lacks system maps and wastes opportunities to communicate useful information to a large commuter population. Note the man squatting in the passage (partly seen). Quite common in Indian trains.

The railroad - the sensible road ahead

As the Americans call it, it is the railroad. We know it as the suburban train, and in London, it is the tube. To many others, the modern versions are the Metro trains.

Whatever moniker suits you, the train does a lot of good to Chennai. Only, it is still in its antiquated Victorian state, rather than modernise with the times just as the Ambassadors and Fiats have given way to the Marutis, Hondas, Fords, Skodas and Toyotas. Of course, Chennai's buses also remain hopelessly primitive and the design of even new bus bodies obsolete.

As someone who uses trains everywhere (I have had occasion to use urban rail in London, New York, Washington DC, Paris, Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Hong Kong) I cannot help noticing the miserably archaic train system that we have in Chennai.

The only redeeming thing about the train is its capacity to carry a large number of people. Otherwise, it is simply, hopelessly outdated in terms of infrastructure and operations.

Here is a glimpse of a station for the most recently introduced train, running on the Mass Rapid Transit System line:

To be fair, this is Fort Station, which is at the surface level. Half a kilometre from here, the MRTS goes on to an elevated section.
But look at the non-working clock, the lack of any signages for passengers indicating basic train information. The ticketing systems are simply pathetic. One has climb a steep flight of stairs to reach the ticketing office and then move to the MRTS platform.
An example of the ticketing offices of the suburban train system in Chennai is this one, at Kodambakkam on the Beach -- Tambaram line.


This office is deep inside the station, on the platform. The downside to that placement is that if you have a train coming in, you would have to sprint up to the office, to get your ticket and then jump on to the train. Being entirely manual, the ticket system is slow, involving a queue in most cases.


The worst disincentive to using the suburban railway system is the lack of automation in the form of escalators to reach the platforms. The approach to the suburban train stations, particularly those on the Beach - Thiruvanmiyur section, is invariably dark, dank and dirty. This puts off many potential travellers.

Car-free Sunday

A week after the Hyundai Elantra knocked my car out of circulation, it was another Sunday. On a day like this, you become aware of how severely car-dependent you are, because India's (more particularly, Tamil Nadu's) policymakers have all but abandoned expansion of bus systems. Trains don't really present an alternative except for long distance commuting. That leaves us with autorickshaws.

Chennai's unregulated autorickshaw business is well-known. It is one of the costliest cities when it comes to hiring such intermediate transport. The fares approximate to between Rs.12 and Rs.15 a kilometre, arguably the highest in the country. The Governments led by both Ms.Jayalalithaa and Mr.Karunanidhi have over the last decade all but abandoned the need to regulate such feeder transport systems.

There is thus no functioning law governing autorickshaws. If you have lived here long enough, you know where you can bargain more effectively and save a few rupees. Trying to hail a crusing autorickshaw in most neighbourhoods is simply useless because the drivers recognise a monopoly principle for stand autorickshaws. Only after your negotiation with the local stand autorickshaws can you hire one that is cruising (and may hence make a more reasonable fare demand).

One of the reasons for this state of affairs is the long shadow of political parties on the transport sector. Let me explain: the major Dravidian parties saw early enough that given their inability to generate employment in most other sectors, urban transport was a means of providing a livelihood to the party faithful.

Thus, autorickshaw permits are secured by the middle rung city political leaders (and sometimes by those associated with leading film personalities) and the autorickshaws are handed over to people from the lowest strata to operate. Given the lack of education and any system of oversight, a high degree of lumpenisation exists in the sector. In fact, in the early 1990s, autorickshaws became the symbols of lumpen-led attacks on political and other opponents. The autorickshaws also demonstrate their affiliations on the vehicles in the form of flags, stickers of party colours, photos of the leaders and so on, all in violation of the Motor Vehicles Act rules. At the same time, few of them have functioning brake lights, headlights, windscreen wipers and indicators, as required under the MV Act.

Is it this vested interest the reason for not expanding the city's bus system, which has grown at the rate of about 100 buses a year for a decade, to serve a metropolis that has expanded in residential population terms by about a million and half people, and in area by a radius of 20 km in that period?

The robust economic growth of the country has accelerated the demand for transport in Chennai, but the Governments have preferred to encourage private vehicle ownership over provision of public alternatives. Private participation in Chennai's transport system is seen as politically unacceptable, although the families of Dravidian politicians own powerful private television networks both in India and abroad.

More on this later. Meanwhile, my car-free Sunday cost me and family Rs.200 by way of autorickshaw and bus fares.

Beyond the car windows

For most city drivers, the world outside their car windows is a distant and remote place. But many such coccooned citizens in fancy cars come face-to-face with the inconvenient reality everyday.

I am talking about the scores of women and children who frequent the traffic intersections in Chennai, appealing to those inside the cars to buy vehicle-cleaning cloth, ear buds, in-car fancy dolls and other assorted stuff.





On Independence Day, I saw this woman who was going from car to car, trying to sell miniature India's national flag displays. These are usually intended to be kept on the dashboard, a public show of patriotism in a land that has failed many of its citizens even after nearly six decades of independence.

It is always worrying that some of these women and their children might come in harm's way, as they keep flitting between vehicles and scurry off just as the lights turn green.

Yellow line fever

I remember the film White Line Fever, in which monstrous trucks race across America. The world has changed a lot and it is now possible to track down crazed drivers, but in Chennai, it is now Yellow Line Fever.

You might wonder what the purpose of these lines are. Police personnel occasionally take the trouble of painting these lines, continuous yellow or broken yellow and broken white lines that are supposed to mean something to drivers.

But not in Chennai.

Look at the response of drivers to plastic bollards that have been placed by traffic police on Anna Flyover at Gemini, and you get an idea of what I mean.

Earlier, we had traffic ignoring the double yellow lines painted on the flyover, and going the wrong way into T.Nagar. They closed that entry at night, because vehicles began to have head-on collisions.

Then, the police have a set of cones on the lines, to demarcate the two halves of the road. Many of those cones were crushed by drivers with impunity. After all, what do a few cones mean in a city that has no rules? People don't even stop at red lights here!



So the police got plastic bollards, thin red cylinders about a couple of feet tall. We have seen even these getting crushed, because no one in the traffic police is ready to wait on the flyover and get the Mad Maxes who are knocking them down and crushing them!

Look at the Lancer car in the picture, straddling the broken white lines, ignorant of what they are supposed to mean. The British brought the automobile to India, but they never taught Indians what lane discipline means. If you are getting very hot under the collar because I talk of the British, why not show me Indian leaders who have done better?

Rooftop riders, only this is not an open top tourist bus!

How do you like this picture of some youths of Chennai riding on top of a city bus, celebrating in a style that may not be common in much of the civilised world?

Riders do hang out of buses for want of space during peak hours, but I watched these urchins generally making a nuisance of themselves and keen on attracting attention through such antics. But in a country where it is difficult even to get your 15 minutes of fame, perhaps they don't have much choice!