by With the lack of an automated system to catch defaulters, we mostly rely on physical checks to see if someone isnt follow the rule. Traffic cameras work in isolation in a few places in city, yet it hasn’t really made a difference to increase in traffic violations.
Some of the violations include: Red signal violation, helmet less driving, over speeding, rash driving, driving in the opposite direction of an one way street and so forth
Yet one of the most important rule of driving is navigation which includes driving straight, lane discipline, and right of way along with non-lane change driving. Violation of any of these is the main cause of traffic accidents and sometimes even lead to a fatal injury. Assuming that the person driving behind you in the left lane is driving straight without obstruction, you are at no point of time allowed to cut to his lane just because it is free for that moment. This disallows him to maintain his path and pace and forced to break causing a ripple effect for vehicles behind him
Right of way in navigation is another unspoken rule where a person driving in a bigger main road always has preference to continue on his path straight than a person coming from a side land cutting across horizontally to the primary driver. More than the term “Right of Way” it is more out of respect as well as safety to stop & allow the main vehicles to pass through while you cross paths.
Quite surprisingly these rules of navigation are neither taught in any driving school by any instructor or rather any laws preside over monitoring these. Driving schools primarily concentrate on teaching people how to overtake one another with complete ignorance of any rules prevalent. They don’t care to explain to the beginners , the finer aesthetics of learning fine navigation skills through the roads. Police too don’t care about who cuts lanes or drives in the wrong lane. Despite spending thousands of crores in constructing a four or six lane highway , motorists or car drivers don’t even have a clue of which lane to drive by. The basic awareness of driving in one’s own lane is completely lacking and people simply take the lane which is least populated.
Statistics may indicate that more cars and bikes are plying in the roads which leads to a traffic congestion in peak hours. Yet they don’t reflect the real picture. If each driver maintains his/her own lane even during heavy traffic and allow other lane drivers to continue in their own lanes without criss crossing, the traffic snarls happening across many metros including Delhi, Mumbai or Bangalore will come down by several fourths
I don’t expect these navigational rules to be followed overnight in a country like India, but I hope to see these changes someday sooner
This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.
