Highway to the Danger Zone
Ride into the Danger Zone
Thus go the lyrics of Kenny Loggins’ song from the cult movie Top Gun. I was reminded of this song when I was travelling on the Western Express Highway today. Seems like the motorists of Mumbai from yesteryear, when the roads were a safe place to be have all but disappeared. Only to be replaced by mobile toting motorists from hell.
Consider this: At the Santacruz station junction on the Expressway, there were 30 (yes, THIRTY) rickshaws waiting to cross the road. As if that was not bad enough, you had three BEST double decker buses chock-a-block in the entire schema. This scenario is enough to make any sane Mumbaikar’s blood creep. However, the most creepiest thing of today’s traffic jam was this: two ladies, in separate cars, holding up the traffic because they could not be bothered to take their attention off their mobile handsets and focus on the change in the signal from red to green. Traffic sense? What the heck is that? Civic sense? Yes, I remember something from my fourth standard class.
Here are some advertisements to give you a sense of what governments across the world are doing in order to prevent people from using their mobile phones when driving. Even texting while driving is not allowed in the UK.
Some drive home the point through humour. Some take the matter seriously and show photographic evidence of tragic & untimely cell phone usage. However, the message remains the same. The human brain, a very complex and beautiful product of evolution has the following fallacies:
1. The I am Invincible syndrome: Heck no. Accidents are for other people. I am much smarter, faster, intelligent, taller, agiler, beautiful, wittier, acrobatic than everyone else. Well, this Calvin & Hobbes strip ought to put things in to perspective for people thinking on those lines:
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2010/06/15/
Notice what Calvin’s Mom says: Unfortunately, we are all “someone else” to someone else.
There is an anecdote which goes thus: 90% of drivers think that they are above average drivers. Wake up, people. There is no such thing as a perfect driver. Sometimes, things can go wrong even without you putting a foot wrong. Just ask a couple of my friends who are no longer on this planet, for no fault of their own. Similar article on this topic here: The Frail Human. (new window will open)
2. We are good at multi-tasking syndrome: What do you know? I can operate & switch between Excel, Notes, VLC Media Player and still have FB, Twitter, Youtube & Metacafe on at the same time on my PC. Well, dig this. Real life ain’t as easy as Alt-Tab. And remember, there is no Ctrl-Z available in real life if you are lying on stretcher zooming towards the hospital. Some articles which state why it is cool to focus on only one task at a time. And why it is much more healthier:
http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2010/05/how-and-why-to-stop-multitaski.html
http://zenhabits.net/how-not-to-multitask-work-simpler-and/
3. The law makers in my country are stupid syndrome: Why, they would not know the first thing about driving. India is a country where the law makers are very active. Though they make take ages to formulate an act or a rule (the principal reason for that being that we as a nation love to search for loopholes) the idea behind the act is often a noble one. It gets lost over time, like in the case of The Election Rules. (new window will open) So, when the police ask you not to use your mobile phone while driving, consider the fact that for a change, these people have got something right. Acknowledging their effort on this front will make them happy and probably encourage them to get more things right in the future. Just a thought, anyway.
Thought of writing this article because I am in general frustrated with the way Mumbai’s traffic scenario is worsening by the day. Some 3, 00, 000 new vehicles take the roads in Mumbai annually (conservative estimate) and there is no saying when old, run down vehicles are scrapped. (Hey, we love to reuse/recycle). And most of the new car owners are the pseudo-nouveau-rich. People who buy outrageously high priced flats in God forsaken areas and pay through their nose their entire lifetimes. High rises contribute to traffic in Mumbai. But all of that is a topic for another blog article. Do drop a comment and let me know what your take is on the entire scenario.
