Our traffic culture
How does traffic chaos and fatalities take place? Police officials express helplessness and offer to deploy more traffic police.
The culture of a society determines the kind of road traffic it must endure, and the traffic in our cities is a living and dying example of our history, social processes and cultural mores. The ways in which we drive, deal with other vehicles and their drivers, and with pedestrians determine our character.
Owing to egoistic vehicle drivers we find that ambulances are kept waiting, schoolchildren delayed for their class and office workers for their tasks and so on. We never give way to an ambulance but invariably move aside for a car with a flashing red beacon and a blaring siren. We breed a fundamental lack of compassion for strangers, unless we understand them to possess the power to punish us. Our cities are increasingly organised around consideration for only those we know, and complete indifference towards those we don't.
Cities require a culture of compassion that addresses strangers inhabiting them. But what we have is a culture of extreme indifference and violence towards our unfamiliar fellow inhabitants. Everyday thousands of migrants arrive in cities from rural areas, in search of a better livelihood. But cities don't have a compassionate culture of dealing with this socio-economic reality. Instead, we have an urban consciousness that only responds with sympathy to acquaintances and those travelling in vehicles exuding power and authority.
A large number of drivers in our cities drive other people's cars, without the faintest hope of ever being car-owners themselves. That is to say, they can almost never hope to experience the sense of prestige and comfort that car-ownership in a poor country symbolises. The rich don't follow traffic rules - unless forced to by the threat of penalty and fine.
The culture of masculinity defines our traffic norms. Our traffic behaviour is fundamentally defined by masculine aggressive behaviour that translates into traffic chaos. We are unable to ever 'give way', lest this be seen as a weakness. The ability to move aside, make way, and show consideration are regarded as 'feminine' virtues. Which, given our gender norms, are to be strictly avoided.
Our public spaces are key sites for displaying masculine behaviour, and the road is one of the most gendered of all spaces. Besides driving like 'real' men, macho road warriors just as frequently alight and relieve themselves in full view of passersby. The culture of public spaces is so deeply masculine that no amount of police presence can solve these everyday irritants.
We should consider the legacy of the licence-permit raj in the making of contemporary traffic cultures. Car drivers are forever trying to get the best position in a queue by breaking the queue at toll gates, traffic lights, and many other places.
Our public culture is marked by the fear of the queue. Constructing tollways, installing traffic lights and having greater police presence provide no solutions to a problem that we imagine is technical. It is changes in the cultural and social fabric that hold the key to smoother passages among friends as well as strangers.
How does traffic chaos and fatalities take place? Police officials express helplessness and offer to deploy more traffic police.
The culture of a society determines the kind of road traffic it must endure, and the traffic in our cities is a living and dying example of our history, social processes and cultural mores. The ways in which we drive, deal with other vehicles and their drivers, and with pedestrians determine our character.
Owing to egoistic vehicle drivers we find that ambulances are kept waiting, schoolchildren delayed for their class and office workers for their tasks and so on. We never give way to an ambulance but invariably move aside for a car with a flashing red beacon and a blaring siren. We breed a fundamental lack of compassion for strangers, unless we understand them to possess the power to punish us. Our cities are increasingly organised around consideration for only those we know, and complete indifference towards those we don't.
Cities require a culture of compassion that addresses strangers inhabiting them. But what we have is a culture of extreme indifference and violence towards our unfamiliar fellow inhabitants. Everyday thousands of migrants arrive in cities from rural areas, in search of a better livelihood. But cities don't have a compassionate culture of dealing with this socio-economic reality. Instead, we have an urban consciousness that only responds with sympathy to acquaintances and those travelling in vehicles exuding power and authority.
A large number of drivers in our cities drive other people's cars, without the faintest hope of ever being car-owners themselves. That is to say, they can almost never hope to experience the sense of prestige and comfort that car-ownership in a poor country symbolises. The rich don't follow traffic rules - unless forced to by the threat of penalty and fine.
The culture of masculinity defines our traffic norms. Our traffic behaviour is fundamentally defined by masculine aggressive behaviour that translates into traffic chaos. We are unable to ever 'give way', lest this be seen as a weakness. The ability to move aside, make way, and show consideration are regarded as 'feminine' virtues. Which, given our gender norms, are to be strictly avoided.
Our public spaces are key sites for displaying masculine behaviour, and the road is one of the most gendered of all spaces. Besides driving like 'real' men, macho road warriors just as frequently alight and relieve themselves in full view of passersby. The culture of public spaces is so deeply masculine that no amount of police presence can solve these everyday irritants.
We should consider the legacy of the licence-permit raj in the making of contemporary traffic cultures. Car drivers are forever trying to get the best position in a queue by breaking the queue at toll gates, traffic lights, and many other places.
Our public culture is marked by the fear of the queue. Constructing tollways, installing traffic lights and having greater police presence provide no solutions to a problem that we imagine is technical. It is changes in the cultural and social fabric that hold the key to smoother passages among friends as well as strangers.
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