Posted by Banwari Lal Sharma
Preethi,
More or less I agree with you, however I would never want people to follow rules/regulations out of fear.
I have an interesting example of people-made traffic rules.
The scene is Arenza sqare in Vashi. Red signal is counting 120, 119, 118... A truck, two cars and one mini-bus stopped where they were supposed to stop. Then came an auto-rikshaw, passing all of them, and stopped in the front row. Then came a Maruti Alto and stopped ahead of auto. A few bikes and a scooter stopped ahead of Alto. Signal is counting 90, 89, 88... and the front row has intruded at least 20 feet so far.
Signal is 60, 59, 58... and front has moved 5-6 feet further, signal is 40, 39, 38... and they have blocked almost entire road ahead and have reached halfway of circle. 25, 24, 23... and there they go. Traffic moved without caring for the traffic on the intersecting side. Green came and gone, red came again. 120, 119, 118 and here comes an Indica zooming ahead, just saving itself from banging a bike coming from right.
This cycle repeats hundreds of times everyday. No matter there is a cop available or not.
Now imagine I was in one of the cars in the same aggressive traffic. I wanted to honor traffic ethics. Wanted to remain idle till signal goes green. But everybody behind me was honking like anything. They made me realize that I am committing some kind of crime. 'Everybody is moving, why ain't you? Are you special?'
Sometimes, you can influence people to stop till it goes green but sometimes conditions are so worse that you might end up fighitng. This is what make me realize, yes, we should be punished, fined for breaking rules. But I don't feel good realizing this fact!
Hi banwari, i live in Noida and have drive a fair bit in Noida and gaziabad. unlike delhi these two cities have much less flyovers and large number of traffic signals. It has happened with me many times, When i stop at the stop line for the red light, and exactly as you said I get swarmed by all kinds of vehicles, coming from all directions and going to all directions. And they even honk me to move but I simply show them the signal and say firmly, i am not going to jump this signal, If you want to do so, your wish. I have seen some peolpe who would have otheriwse jumped the signal, but seeing me waiting for the light to turn green they too stopped. As pankaj said, its nto that people are not aware or they do not want to follow traffic rules, but all want to do what tohers are doing. best to combat this is to strictly follow the rules yourself and very soon you will find the number of rule abiding motorists will improve on the road. At leat the peolpe participating itn his discusison should take the lead and follow all rules religiously.
Word of caution for any one coming to noida: during night watch out for traffic coming from different directions during th enight, if your signal is green. People here jump red lights at far greater speeds than what they will do if the signal was green
