Sonam Angmo
Another road safety week is in progress; however, Jammu’s road traffic continues to be in a pathetic state. This situation has arisen not merely due to the incompetency of the traffic officials, but places a greater onus on the citizens of Jammu. Citizens flouting traffic signals is a very routine sight in the lanes of Jammu. The citizens blame the traffic officials, the traffic officials blame the common citizens, and it all meanders into a vicious circle of blame game. What is going to happen to the Indian traffic system, time will tell and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture. Every day, lakhs of people move in vehicles, two wheelers, three wheelers, four wheelers all jammed in a single lane. Meanwhile, the bystanders walking on the road are booed out and in several instances, left to fend for their lives.
It is no uncommon sight to witness the open and proud flouting of traffic regulations, despite the fairly recently installed traffic signals in Jammu. One daily comes across many, flashing a proud grin while breaking a traffic signal. The smirks on such faces reek of entitled personas greatly deficient in basic civic sense. The spewing of curses, ritual swearing ushers the opening of the shutters of the city’s traffic market in the morning.
A typical scene in Jammu’s daily road traffic plays out on a busy road junction, where a learner has no place. ‘Driving professionals’, of myriad varieties indulge in risqué swerves, illegal cuts and twists with blinding lights on display in the night. At the other end, a truck flashes: ‘Use dipper at night!’ A traffic official is another endangered species, spotted rarely, but magically appears when a red beacon car cavalcade is passing through. Their earnest professionalism is indeed praise worthy during those ‘crucial moments.’
The horns in the vehicles: another mass consumed feature blown with full gusto, unmindful of the decibel sound, that would shatter anybody’s eardrums. Strict regulations should be implemented, as to the noise level of horns and the kinds of horns. Youngsters on bikes, honking the ‘latest horn’ , a very ‘different’ and ‘innovative’ horn sound, as it happens to be a woman’s scream. These utterly disgusting and demeaning horns fall silent on deaf ears of the traffic department. Apart from serious noise pollution, unchecked vehicular traffic has given rise to alarming levels of air pollution. Jammu would soon have to adopt Delhi’s odd-even formula in regulating the pollution caused by vehicular traffic, if necessary guidelines are not followed to curtail vehicular emission.
Road rage seems to be the order of the day and metropolitan cities like Delhi, have been witness to many such incidents of road rage. Jammu is home to the daily terror unleashed by local buses/ matadors that make illegal stops. The matadors playing loud, ear shattering music are often seen racing with each other, caring less a penny for road safety. Every vehicle owner adopting similar ways should be fined heavily and have their licence revoked. A strong deterrent needs to be set. Stressing heavily on the importance of road safety, the Road and Transport minister, Nitin Gadkari this week, spoke about the introduction of the Road Transport and Safety Bill to be passed in the upcoming Budget session. Mr. Gadkari in his address, spoke about how the deaths due to road accidents in India are 14 times greater than deaths due to wars. He further impressed upon the urgency and importance of the bill that would be introduced in the 2016 Budget session. If passed, this bill would mark a landmark change in the current scenario of road safety in the country.
Well, the big question that looms large is who is responsible for this daily chaos on the streets? The hard truth is that all of us are collectively responsible for the decrepit state of the road traffic system of our state. The motorist is to blame who flouts traffic rules, traffic officials are to blame for their lax attitude and zero accountability, the pedestrian is to blame for not following rules of road safety and of course, the sheer complacent attitude of the whole system at large. There are countless instances of road accidents in the state due to poor condition of the roads, potholes are a normal sight in every street. Daily traffic jams is a mere euphemism to depict the chaotic road scene. The real ugliness is captured in the open sewage pipelines akin almost to every road corner of the city. Congestion hotspots like Gol market area in Gandhi Nagar, Bikram Chowk, Mahatma Gandhi Chowk(Satwari), Canal Road, Parade Road, Panjtirthi Chowk, so on, should be tackled effectively. This can be achieved by ensuring proper roads, separate lanes and routes for cars, matadors and buses. In most cases traffic jams also occur due to the heavy presence of illegally parked cars. Ideal parking zones should be implemented in this regard.
In Jammu region, the building of flyover projects have been undertaken to divert and reduce road traffic. The flyover project from Bikram Chowk to Convent School, Gandhi Nagar brews a dust storm on the state highway. The inefficiency and slow functioning of this project has cost a lot and added to the common citizen’s daily woes of commuting. A softened stand is not the answer, government and the citizens of the state can only make real progress if they participate in bettering the road traffic system.
Jammu is a city that is slowly gaining a cosmopolitan character, from residential localities getting commercialised to the emergence of multiplexes and mall culture. The policy makers, where we citizens form an inherent part, should offer serious thought in terms of road traffic planning and development in all the three regions of our state ; Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh. Traffic signals are symbols of a developed city frame that are coming up in every town of the country, so it is high time we follow traffic rules and discharge our duties. When Oprah Winfrey visited India in 2012, she humourously summed up her car travel on the streets of India, as being in a video game where anything could happen anytime. She felt amazed to see the overall adjustment of all vehicles despite the total chaos. But, we dare not bask in our national adjustment politics. For this age old ‘adjustment’ entails dangerous prospects for the future of road traffic and road safety in the country.
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