Driving ethics and traffic control

Chaos in Hinjewadi flyover –

An year and a more has passed ever since I set my foot on the soil of Pune. Way back in January, I used to reach my office in 15 minutes. I still reside at the same place and my office also is at the same place. Only difference that today I reach my office in an hour or sometimes 2 hours also. Hinjewadi has always been a matter of speculation when it comes to traffic. One must view the sight at 8:30 in the morning, of at the least 200 vehicles, lined one behind the other, waiting for the chaos of traffic jam to diffuse. Same view is telecast in the evening at 6:15. When the traffic becomes severe, people attribute the reasons to festivities. Folks!even on normal days, the scenario is no different. Now that one of the roads leading to Dange chowk has been blocked, lately there has been a terrible problem in travelling to office, specially for the 2 wheelers. Initially, this issue was taken quite lightly. But ever since my roommate witnessed a gory gruesome accident of a motorcyclist, who was hit and run over by a truck, and was dead on the spot, I felt an urge to write about this.

Traffic jam is a never ending problem in Pune. The city has not been designed to hold a population that it is accommodating today. Being a star city in education and an expansively growing IT hub, it is becoming more or less like Mumbai with only difference of infrastructure which lacks in this beautiful city of hills. The roads are not so wide that they fail to contain such a surfeit of vehicles. Above all, adding more problems, I have seen, people here do not have a proper driving sense. And nor is the traffic strict here. This is the case, not only in the outskirts of city like Hinjewadi, but similar Pandora boxes are inevitable even inside the city. People seem to be in such a hurry always that they fail to see people around them. They drive such that every lil space on the road has to be covered up and that creates a plethora of problems for the poor traffic police who have no planned strategy to tackle this issue. In Hinjewadi, day by day, the crisis is getting complicated all the more. With two more techno parks that would be coming to life in Wakad, in a few months to come, the IT head count would increase haphazardly and then managing that kind of traffic in that narrow road will worse than a nightmare.

First of all, there is nothing much that can be done for infrastructure as it has already been planned. So what can be done is that people must inculcate a proper driving sense inside them. The traffic police need to be more alert and must be prepared for any kind of problems that can arise due to the traffic. They must be ruthless with the people breaking the traffic rules. Otherwise the fear to wrong an ethic or break a rule will never be indoctrinated in a person. Nowadays, in Pune, people who break rules survive better than people who follow rules well. Though the roads are narrow, they still could be managed well only if people take a lil more care while driving. It is high time that people open their eyes to the hard reality and prevent even small accidents.

Remember – “Life is a gift. And it is gifted only once.”

What could have been the last thoughts of that motorcyclist who is no more? Has anyone thought? It gives everyone a chill down their spine as such a calamity can befall anyone. Life is already so unpredictable. So why take it so lightly?

What is more important is to be a responsible citizen who rather than following the rule – “Rules are meant to be broken” must follow the rule – “Live and let live”