I was having a conversation with one of my friend the other day and he asked me to meet near MG Road. I said I will take 45 minutes. He was surprised and asked how far is my home from MG, i told its around 7 kms. He then realized that I calculated the approx time coz of the wild traffic here in Bangalore. So as a good citizen i told him the approx time and reached MG in 40 mins.That was an achievement in itself as on Saturday eve it takes relatively more time that 40 mins to reach MG.
Anyways success doesn't come as it is and hard work is followed by success. And my achievement too had a kind of success. I should say success in terms of reaching my destination well before time (trust me 5 min is a lot of time).
The hard work i did was making my way through the pool of other vehicles. Thats an altogether skill in itself. You have too keep your eye on moving vehicles from the opposite side, from your right and left side to see someone isn't overtaking you and the vehicle ahead of you. You are concentrating on 4 different directions at a given time. Good that we don't have vehicles flying above you, otherwise people would have hired specialist like me to drive them to office.Thats a tough job. Human mind have to be sharp enough to guess all the possible reflexes that he can perform in next few milliseconds. You never know which vehicle is going to take a sudden left or right turn, or there might be a vehicle coming from front and wants to take a U turn.
So that was it, what i call it as a skill driving and which has its own pros and cons. But as far as the traffic goes i believe its the responsibility of both government and the citizens to make it a smooth ride back home. I think most of the city roads were built some 50 years back without considering the expansion. Take Bangalore for example, in last ten years the population increased by huge amount but the roads were the same. People are using more personal vehicles than public transport. First of all the public transport sucks except for metros like Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.
Even if the road is 4 lane but still we face a huge traffic because of poor traffic management.
Even if the infrastructure in place people like me who want to reach office in half an hour, with their creative mind, try all possible routes. I overtake from left, in case of heavy traffic i go to pavement of road, i drove footpath as well. I might be reach ten minutes earlier but what i don't see is the civic sense. Sometimes people really get uneasy and try something different things to reach destination in minimum possible time. I bet most of the bike accidents happen coz of left overtaking.
The effect is cumulative. We all say traffic is poorly managed and infrastructure sucks and on the other hand we are the ones who break all the traffic rules and make our own. The message is loud and clear "if u don't change then we too wont change". But as all the movies come to an end. Probably there will be a day when i see all the vehicles driving in a lane and following all the traffic rule. Its an individual's initiative and difficult to implement.
I salute all the guys who drive on these Indian roads.
