In 1962, when I started school in a small village in Palakkad, Kerala, there were hardly any cars. A bearded old man called Chinan came home each morning with his horse-drawn carriage to take me to school. Sitting beside him and riding through the narrow streets of the old town past the ancient temples were the most enjoyable moments of my brief initial school days in Palakkad.

Today, both Chinan and his horse-drawn carriage have disappeared. Every home has a car. Some even have up to three cars -- thanks to the easy loan availability. But, there are hardly any roads to drive on. A very large percentage of the available road surface is taken away for parking of vehicles and the rest for the crawling traffic.

It is almost certain that, while the vehicle population in all of India would exceed the target significantly, the road construction would fall way behind.The conditions of roads is made worse by the lax attitude of motorists towards straightforward safety rules.

We are second only to the US in term of fatalities due to road accidents.

Public Transport

In most of Europe, owning a car is a luxury as the insurance premiums, road taxes and maintenance costs are exceedingly high. An excellent public transport system of railways and buses makes it needless to own cars.

In Germany, around ten billion passengers use bus and rail services every year. This includes the Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel and several of her cabinet colleagues!

The Netherlands has over 30,000 km of segregated cycle tracks. One third of the working people in Amsterdam cycle to work. Public transport comes in second place (35 per cent) and only one quarter travels by car to work.

For Europeans who use the car, the basic principle of traffic law is the “doctrine of confidence”, which, in effect, says that motorists must be alert, obey the law, and drive defensively at all times so that all motorists and other road users — including pedestrians — can have confidence in each other.

Several traffic disobediences are severely punished.These include driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, exiting the scene of an accident, illegal passing, prohibited U-turns and wrong-way driving or reversing on the Autobahn, failure to yield the right-of-way, and irresponsible driving including excessive speeding.

Road discipline

It is well known that unruliness of drivers and over-speeding vehicles are the commonest causes of major road mishaps and fatalities. So, most speed-violations are monitored in Europe through enforcement cameras. Germany probably uses such cameras more than any other country in the EU. It is high time we have speed cameras installed in Indian roads.

European research reveals that drivers take twice longer to react to an unexpected occurrence on the road when speaking on the phone or, trying to send a text message while driving. A ringing phone can distract the driver for more than seven seconds — even if it goes unanswered while driving.

With almost all drivers now in possession of a mobile phone, it has added anextra layer of hazard and a great deal of distraction for drivers all around India.

It is also vital that all road users accept that along with the privilege of using our roads comes the responsibility of adhering to the rules.

(The author is former Europe Director, CII, and lives in Cologne, Germany.)

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