Offbeat (13): Trauma at Crossroads

By John B. Monteiro
Bellevision Media Network

11 September 2012: In the 1970s, when I walked from Colaba to my office in Ballard Estate, in Mumbai, I used to observe a lady in her thirties leading her son, in his early teens, by the hand along Colaba Causeway to his school at  Convent Street. I knew that the lady had lost her young husband when the boy was about two years old. The leading by the hand the teen-aged son puzzled me no end. I put it down to her sense of insecurity combined with her anxiety to protect her only anchor and hope.

These tentative conclusions didn’t entirely silence my curiosity. One day I buttonholed the lady to ask why she was continuing to lead her son by the hand even though he had grown up to be a teen. I suggested that perhaps her son could manage the short distance from Pasta Lane to Holy Name School on his own unescorted – leave alone led by the hand.

 
She had a story to tell. It had nothing to do with her sense of insecurity. But, it had everything to do with the protection and safety of her only son. The stretch from her home to the school involved several road crossings, including one regulated by traffic lights. The crossing at these traffic lights is the most dangerous thing for her son. For, he had been told in school that it is safe to cross when the lights are green for the pedestrians. So, her son goes by the book, and crosses the road when the lights go green for him, irrespective of other considerations. Consequently, he could be run over by vehicles which don’t observe traffic light discipline.

 
That the widowed lady had a point hit me like a tonne of bricks on my visit to Mumbai xix years ago where I had lived for forty years, thirty of them in Colaba. I had taken along a new maid to chaperone my five-year-old grandson, Zach, to Jesuit-run Campion School and back. To make matters worse, she was not even exposed to a district town, leave alone a metro. Then there was language problem. She was also physically handicapped. So, it fell on me to chaperone the maid and my grandson for a fortnight from the residence at Strand to the school at Cooperage. This stretch included the traffic light junction at Electric House that the widowed lady had to escort her son through.

 
After explaining the green and red lights, I opted to watch how the maid would manage the crossing at the traffic light regulated junction. My heart nearly stopped at how they almost got run over by red-light-jumping vehicles. This is specially the case when vehicles take left turn where they do not have to run into oncoming vehicular traffic and run the risk of head-on collision. Humans are soft targets for them, as the vehicles themselves do not run the risk of being hurt. Besides, cyclists, handcarts and water-drum carts (common in Colaba) act as though the traffic lights do not apply to them.

 
This was some years ago when the concentration of traffic on Colaba Causway and Electric House Junction traffic signal was moderate. Today, there is high density of vehicular traffic, and frequent traffic jams, in this area. Yet, the traffic police have now administered a cruel blow against pedestrians by making free left turns for vehicles and no exclusive green signal for pedestrians – allowing vehicles to run even when the lights are green for pedestrians to cross. So, the pedestrians - children, senior citizens and handicapped included – have to negotiate their way across the road by dodging vehicles which speed up to get through the bend.

 
 I presume that this is the scenario at other traffic junctions as well not only in Mumbai but also in other metros and district towns. like Mangalore. It means that pedestrians have no exclusive right of way. This is the triumph of mechanized might against vulnerable humans – with police patronage.

 
 
So, what is the remedy? Education, facilitation, enforcement and infrastructure correction. Education is important to instill the idea that obeying traffic signals is mandatory and not a matter of discretion or judgment based on ground situation. Drivers cannot decide for themselves on the basis of absence of oncoming traffic to ignore the signals and take a chance of a quick getaway. There should be a regime of total compliance by everything that moves on wheels, including cycles and handcarts.

 
With the availability of modern channels of communication, such as TV, the education process should not be difficult. This can be reinforced by distribution of leaflets at traffic junctions and hoardings (which may attract corporate sponsorship – as LIC had been doing for many years).

 
Facilitation involves traffic police supplementing the work of traffic lights at busy junctions to reinforce the idea of traffic discipline. This requires a paradigm shift in the traffic police department. At present, some beat police crouch behind parked cars or bushes to catch the offender. This should change to being a proactive regulator rather than being thief-catcher and “negotiator”.

 
Thief-catching could have been tolerable if it was a transparent operation without any hidden agenda of the police involved. For, often such catching of culprits does not result in outright booking of the offender, but the starting point of “negotiations” to strike the right price (unofficial) for the release of the culprit. In other words, the message should go out loud and clear that the culprit would have no escape from the law – however high or mighty he might be. Abroad, close relatives of Presidents and Prime Ministers are booked for traffic offences on a routine basis.

 
There should be a pan-India policy to provide exclusive time slot for green signal for pedestrians. The vehicles, which spend hours in traffic jams, can spare a minute that takes pedestrians to cross the road with assured safety – thus eliminating trauma at cross roads.

 
The need for traffic light protection goes beyond children. There are several other vulnerable sections that require such protection, especially senior citizens and handicapped persons.

 
Finally, what is applicable to motorists also covers pedestrians. Their ignoring the traffic signals not only means accident risk for themselves but hindrance and risk for motorists. Unlike vehicles, pedestrians do not sport registration numbers on their fronts and rears and easily melt into the crowd. Some exemplary on-the-spot fines imposed on a sustained basis is sure to put the fear of the traffic law and ensure compliance. In this context, one can recall that a few years ago, a Marine Drive resident, a big name on Dalal Street, had got signal lights installed at Hotel Nataraj (now a different name); but was killed in an early morning accident while crossing the road, for his morning walk, at the same signal lights. A case of either pedestrian or motorist ignoring the signal lights – as is common in the mornings till vehicular traffic builds up. Traffic lights are mandatory – and not subject to perception or judgment of either pedestrian or motorist. 

 The problem has become more acute with rapid increase of motor vehicles and shrinking road space due to parking. However, according to a report, imperceptible telephone-size boxes on traffic poles that worldwide have given pedestrians a say in the way traffic works were finally set to enter into Mumbai thanks to the city’s traffic police. The small cases allow walkers to change the traffic lights at pedestrian crossings with just a push of the button, reducing their waiting time.

 
The news has been greeted by skepticism on the main ground that pedestrians will mess it up. The vested interests will see to it that the motorists will have their way exclusively and pedestrian take the hindmost.

 
Chew on This!

 

 

John B. Monteiro, journalist and author, is Editor of his website, www.welcometoreason.com (Interactive Cerebral Challenger) – with provision for instant response. Try responding!